“Insulin isn’t Advil. It’s oxygen.”  
                               −Sign from an insulin price demonstration at Eli Lilly & Co. 


Midnight at an airport hotel
the moon over Indianapolis
rinses runways, truck beds, lamp posts,
the glass cheeks of windows
with its clean light.
Less than a century ago the same moon lit
the University of Toronto roof
where Best and Banting
and the lab dogs took breaks
while nudging insulin into being.

The same moon heard
Borman, Anders and Lovell greet Earth
from Apollo 8.
Tomorrow, at the headquarters
of our home-grown
pharmaceutical giant
people will lift poster board
in polite astonishment.
People will ask why
their prices lost gravity.

There’s a new dark side to
the American moon –
the land of shadow pricing
the land of patent extensions
the land of shareholders
at mission control.
Every essential medicine
is oxygen.
The same moon watches, waits.
You can’t outfox this old moon.


Katy Giebenhain is a poet advocating for access to essential medicines. She is the author of Sharps Cabaret (Mercer University Press), winner of the Adrienne Bond Award for Poetry. Her creative writing MPhil is from University of South Wales. Her MA is from University of Baltimore. Her BFA is from Oregon State. Along with Marty Malone and Alan Bogage she co-hosts a First Friday poetry series from September-June at the Ragged Edge Coffeehouse in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Katy has been a regional judge for Poetry Out Loud and is the former Poetry + Theology editor and designer for Seminary Ridge Review.