#0055

I hold your life here in my hand.
A pile of scribbled lines, barely legible.
I see the birth of your first child.
I see heartaches and joys.
I hear concerned relatives whisper reverently
In the corridor outside your room.
There's the build up of panic and investigations;
Frequent examinations;
Reports, referrals;
As they seek your label desperately-
As though their lives depended on it.
The satisfied crescendo as they stamp upon you
The achieved diagnosis.
It's the result of investigations
And the way you have lived.
The smoke you drank in;
15 a day; 10 a day; 5 a day;
You never suspected the course you charted.
Yet I hold it here, in my hand,
Clear to me from page one.