Check-up

She has few memories

untouched by these meetings,

these stiff seats and clotted magazines;

she is always the youngest

and is observed with interest

as she steps carefully over

the pale sea carpet which offers

little peace really,

for she thinks it is possibly deeper

underneath than she could stand.

Once she has counted three patients,

each one colourless,

six pallid hands in total,

she too is called from the waiting room

and brought into focus;

a man examines her violet eye

whilst she tries in earnest

to settle her breath

and steady her legs

underneath her chair.

When she is asked about pain

it becomes much harder

to face the doctor at all;

a small throb begins to boil

in the left hand side of her jaw

and she wonders if he can see

the water threatening to render him

awkward and soft

as it runs off her cheek

and onto his palm.

But she is saved by a knock:

an elderly woman has cut her hand

on a broken glass bottle

from her prescription bag,

so whilst the doctor goes out to take a look

she is left alone in his room

to touch the jag and tooth

of a silver letter knife

that if held right there against her face

might draw an ache that he could see.

But she doesn’t do that;

too soon the doctor returns

with his crag tooth and grin,

a crimson fingerprint on his coat,

to sign over a list

of six new medicines

which she grips between her fingers

as she drifts back through the waiting room,

a little more sheer than before,

her toes just slipping below the pale sea.

(Published in The Emma Press Anthology of Illness).