First Time
— Read on sambasue21.blog/2019/01/14/first-time/
Spanish Street
Clouds gathering
Airing my feet in a Spanish street
While my iPhone is charging
Silent town of Dominigo de Garcia
You could swing a cat ,they say
But the cat in front of me is not walking away
Late afternoon and the crafty inhabitant
Watching me
Waiting
Knows the albergue has food
Has walked past and looked
Walked past again
Skuttled away
Patrolling this end of town vigilantly
For scraps
Too hot
I’m forced to sit
To think
To write
While my iPhone is charging
My iPhone ,an umbilical chord
To a world outside
Populated by people I know
Filled with noise and jobs and love
Beds well made
Food on the table
I know that world .
Here I am nothing
In this vast and unknown landscape
Where the wind blows in the morning
And the sun still blazes past midday
No-one knows me
And indeed not sure if I know myself
Or how the day will end .
This stripey ,wiley cat knows if it waits long enough
It will have dinner
Just an old Suitcase
Just an old suitcase in front of the second hand shop window. The suitcase I packed my special things in each time we shifted ,each time I repacked my books for the first day of a new school, ; earlier than that the suitcase my uncle hid his dinky cars . Later stored stage makeup , much later .
Brown , solid, clicked shut. Safe.
The Visit
-End April 2021 Visit for annual check /CT Scan post cancer
I stand in a queue with my referral and hand it to the receptionist .She tells me to sit on the chairs and wait .So I sit on the chairs in this white room .A man (he tells me he is the radiographer )comes along and tells me politely to change into the gown and takes me to the corridor ,gives me the gown and a basket for my clothes and suggests I change in the loo.I take everything off and put the gown on ,struggling to understand again which way it fastens so as not to gape in front and show half my stomach and breasts .Immediately feel a patient as its so ugly ,so open ,so gaping .Muddy grey with one tie at neck .Stripped and cold I sit and wait again on a bench in the corridor outside the radiography room .The radiographer comes back and tells me I can move into the CT scan room .I follow him in and lie on the bench .He .sets tup the tubes before asking the usual questions :name ,date of birth .,allergies .
” Had the blood test ?”
“Yes ,the results should be here “.
Pause “Oh well you seem ok and you say no problems with your liver ?.We’ll go ahead .”.
He ties the tourniquet around my left arm and then has trouble getting the needle into the vein .A pause .
“Better check the blood test “he says .Leaving me lying on my back looking at the ceiling he goes off to phone for the blood test results .I can hear him murmuring and he’s gone a long time it seems .Back he comes .”Its s all ok “.Phew!
We start.
Slide into the cone .Breathe .Slide out .
Slide in .Voice says again “Breathe in .Hold for 3 Breathe out “And as I breathe out the bed is slid back out of the cone .
And its in and out ,in and out, in and out ,with the disembodied voice instructing me on my breath
Then the liquid is pumped through the reclatriant vein.That icey feeling inside my body .Sliding in and out of the cone again
.
Its over,I get up slowly off the table .Not for another year .It didn’t hurt .It wasn’t all that long .Hopefully the results will be good .So why are my knees shaky and my hands trembling?
Download
I stand in a queue with my referral and hand it to the receptionist .She tells me to sit on the chairs and wait .So I sit on the chairs in this white room .A man (he tells me he is the radiographer )comes along and tells me politely to change into the gown and takes me to the corridor ,gives me the gown and a basket for my clothes and suggests I change in the loo.I take everything off and put the gown on ,struggling to understand again which way it fastens so as not to gape in front and show half my stomach and breasts .Immediately feel a patient as its so ugly ,so open ,so gaping .Muddy grey with one tie at neck .Stripped and cold I sit and wait again on a bench in the corridor outside the radiography room .The radiographer comes back and tells me I can move into the CT scan room .I follow him in and lie on the bench .He .sets tup the tubes before asking the usual questions :name ,date of birth .,allergies .
” Had the blood test ?”
“Yes ,the results should be here “.
Pause “Oh well you seem ok and you say no problems with your liver ?.We’ll go ahead .”.
He ties the tourniquet around my left arm and then has trouble getting the needle into the vein .A pause .
“Better check the blood test “he says .Leaving me lying on my back looking at the ceiling he goes off to phone for the blood test results .I can hear him murmuring and he’s gone a long time it seems .Back he comes .”Its s all ok “.Phew!
We start.
Slide into the cone .Breathe .Slide out .
Slide in .Voice says again “Breathe in .Hold for 3 Breathe out “And as I breathe out the bed is slid back out of the cone .
And its in and out ,in and out, in and out ,with the disembodied voice instructing me on my breath
Then the liquid is pumped through the reclatriant vein.That icey feeling inside my body .Sliding in and out of the cone again
.
Its over,I get up slowly off the table .Not for another year .It didn’t hurt .It wasn’t all that long .Hopefully the results will be good .So why are my knees shaky and my hands trembling?
Download
Sambasue21 