Alan Corkish
At the psychiatrists
she is good at this
playing at being the doctor
and i am equally good at
playing at being the patient
she wheels out her practised smile
of reassurance like some Capablanca
seeing eight moves ahead
toying with a victim
and i play out my finely honed
version of controlled madness
as she expects me to
i act differently with her
because some information
can’t be imparted with words
when she asks how i feel
i answer affirmatively
but shift position
raise eyebrows
smile wryly
while signalling like cultivated
stations from the cross
and adding ‘you know’
at the end of every answer
i’m not happy with my medication
so enquire earnestly about side-effects
until she asks me to expand
i adopt a clearly reasoned frown
of enquiry as to whether it might
be possible to live without it
we compromise
and a reduced intake is agreed
‘under close supervision’
leaving, walking in the daffodil pathways
i had a flash back to childhood
and with it, for a brief second
an image of all time past present and future
occupying a single space in which our strange ritual
slotted perfectly and didn’t seem at all
as insane as it did when we acted it out
each, to our captive audience
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