The compassionate surgeon

He lays you down, brings you toffee
and rum, not tapioca and tap water,
or vegetable oil-based orange. He listens
to your pulse with his whole head,
tells you it's OK, brings you
cheap and filthy reading matter
in Jane Eyre's dust jacket, dresses you
in silk. The anaesthetic,
as you are carried into the OR
on a sedan, fanned, to a live band,
smells of apples and home.
He prompts your eyes shut, sits
in lotus until you are under, withdraws
the scalpel from its modesty box,
quiets the band
and begins.