Article Text
Statistics from Altmetric.com
I, poised on the edge
of reason, sway.
While you, weighing differentials,
strike a diagnostic match
igniting fiery thoughts and
cogitating a multi-axial symptom overload.
I, wording my life, flounder.
Gasp, a fish on the table.
You and I fray over
shattered mirrors reflecting only
I in mine and you in yours.
You ask about my mother.
She was there, but not where
I, could find a history
In the splayed shards that
You, compose into me
With an assertive air.
Pill purveyor, dream voyeur.
I have seen izangoma*, priests, witchdoctors.
Did they see me? I cannot know.
You a doctor of Which? When? What?
Questions to throw my bones.
To read where they lie.
To determine my status of mind.
I rise unpatient-like and cross a canyon in bare feet,
encountering you midway, adrift.
You trying to put yourself in my shoes
You still in your own feet.
*South African Zulu diviners who use methods including the throwing of bone fragments to divine causes and treatments for physical, psychological and spiritual ailments.
Footnotes
Competing interests None.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.