The Thump Therapy days are over:

counted out and retired to a neutral corner;

the wet towel thrown in and gloves undone

by a drug - dependency culture;

the pharmacist’s force-feeding fists bitten

to the knuckle and further; displacing muscle

with a subtle message and if guided missiles

cause collateral damage, the buckle of synapse

is not like the crack of a wrist snapped back.

That isn’t the way of The Straighteners.

They slide smoothly through the ropes,

into the ring and up to the mark,  

masters of the soul-mending art

and a craft that corrects the crooked.

They’ll put a name to your affliction

just from the way your kisser is looking  

or a glance at your gait and posture;

an especially long mesmeric word

slowly pronounced in italics.

Then you’re under the spell and down on the couch,

your arse in the air and your tongue hanging out,

as they tell you to chill all the while

that you’re being roasted.

Still, each diagnosis comes sugar-coated -

a steady eye contact and you’re all a-goggle  

at the bath and bubble of verbal Jacuzzi.

You’ve got the hump?

They're restoring your youth and beauty:

life’s bruises and unsightly hunches

will be smoothed by empathic responses;

those chips that sit on your shoulder

erased when you let them take over

and massage your measure, cut you down

to size and trim until you’re fit for purpose;

a prince or a princess nearer the norm

of your Body Mass Index, that Nirvana

as narrow as the eye of a needle.

The knots of their connections will wheedle your confessions

from the wind of the torture rack;

ask them any questions and hear their reflections

rearrange your wordsas your throat’s forced to take them back.

They taste like anagrams or palindromes,

poems or dramatic monologues -

now you’re ready to roll off the bandage.

Quis custodiet custodien?  

They don’t speak that language.