The Results

by Anthony Lawrence 

I found my doctor on the floor of his surgery

with a model of the heart.

            He was clipping colour-coded pieces

of plastic into place. I had come for the results

of my kidney function test

            and renal scan. Above him,

a chart of the cardio-vascular system

like a London Tube map.

            He sat down, pressed his fingers together

like a detective considering evidence,

and told me

            my blood-work revealed points of light

scattering in a hollow ring, “As when protons

meet head-on and throw

            quarks inside a collider. Your scan

shows angel trumpet flowers after ingesting

their own fluids.”

            He said he had seen something similar

during Gestalt therapy when the words

Belladonna

            and Nightshade appeared on a door

that opened onto a garden planted

abundantly with worm-

            wood and narcotic bells.

The doctor said, “Now, as for your scan...”

I looked at a screen

            where flowers were shape-shifting

into figure-ground illusions, then at photos

of kidney-shaped dams

            filled with black water. As he spoke,

a skeleton beside a poster warning

that abuse will not

            be tolerated, was telling me to avert

my eyes and cover my ears. I left the doctor

pacing, his hands

            like a pair of axolotls, his expression

that of a man in a Robert Crumb cartoon

who had just been

            diagnosed with a fatal form

of Derealization Disorder.