Appointment

Who allocates out-patient rooms,

departments, as if body parts,

elementary, blocked canal?

Internal map, a circuit board,

old teaching aid, blood systems guide,

beside bare bones, skeleton hung.

Some bible tracts from chaplain’s rack,

Qur’anic, ecumenical,

to salve across the deeper wounds.

Why printed on a minor slip,

the major tear-off bit attached,

doctor’s scribble, notorious.

In crabby hand, ‘oncology’,

as numbness wears, old feeling comes,

the anaesthetic, current shock.

I know myself, so sure they’re wrong –

I’ll prove it when I come again.

Take note, that map, rack, slip all rot.