Cat Scan Routine Poem by Frank Bana

Every four months I sit, patient
On such hard wooden benches
As are thought suitable for bearers
Of many kinds of cancer
Without complaint, in companionship
Waiting for a scan

Thinking of the days when
Pensions, even indigestion
Were issues of concern
When there were no prompts or spurs
To consider the golden nature
Of a moment, an embrace

When I was not yet impelled
To weigh the meaning of the past
To attempt to crack the poet's code
To hold life so lovingly
In carefully cupped hands, as if
Nursing a wounded bird

Every four months, a similar parade
Of thoughts, by now familiar:
Having no fear of tiny shapes
Buried in my photograph
And in my bones belief that I
Am plotted at the far end of the curve
On the standard graph of life and time,
So blessed, entirely fortunate

Afraid only to be not free
To be at distance from a dream
Held back from the soul's pursuit
Of what my eyes call beautiful
Of what would make a better thing
Of what we call the world

And now the round white tube, wherein
The music of the working day falls still,
Embraces me. I risk falling asleep
Until, with a trace of irony,
The recorded voice cries 'breathe! '.
So familiar a routine, I may forget
How deeply you remain concerned for me,
To thank you for all you are to me -
And so I do, most deeply

Aroused from peaceful states, I realize
Here may be found, minute and visible,
Some verdicts on the progress of my cells
The footprints of my homeopathic health
My hopes and hard intentions to survive
To be for long-lived purposes
Alive