For Dr. Evelyn Davies

 

One December morning an unexpected

sun, shining through the partly opened slats

of the bathroom’s white venetian blind, lit

three nascent nodules on my nose’s right side,

budding excrescences not seen before

on this particular olfactory

organ – my neb, my schnozzle, my trwyn.

 

By January they were a tad

roseate. I entered the system

that lifts ‘the shadow from millions of homes’,

as the Welshman said who dreamed it. Named

for an ancient poet, he cured his stammer

reciting in the hills above his home

William Morris’s Chants For Socialists:

‘Come hither lads, and hearken, for a tale

there is to tell, Of the wonderful days

a-coming when all shall be better than well…’

 

I digress. I was prescribed a salve

for acne, and antibiotics; had

photos taken, and X-rays and CT scans;

my overseas travels were noted,

sojourns in Venice, Gascony, Luxor,

KwaZulu, Umbertide, Marrakech;

slices – thin as from the costliest truffle –

were tested for syphilis, and for TB;

finally, a cohort of consultants

in pairs, trios, quartets, for nearly an hour,

touched and scrutinised the three enigmas.

 

The results were negative, the blemishes

removed. Such palpable investments –

of time, technology, expertise, and care –

to ensure an old man’s nose would not be

the death of him!