Deep brain

Start with: when a man with Tourette’s
says he’d sooner end up dead than survive
one more day less the job as a nurse he had
before his racist slurs got worse, really bad –
that pretty much breaks a machine’s heart.

Then: if this claustrophobic will have his
head caged, a gruesome exhibit, gunk
on it, the bone flap of his skull popped up
like a car bonnet for me to wangle a live
lead in his brain, and stay awake! So when

(raw deal) I ask him how he feels, a prod
here he’s sad, a poke there he’s scared, an
inch down Limbic Street, best fun he’s had...
Well, the word “risk”, as soon as blown from
my lips, will rise to the clouds like some poor

boy’s helium balloon liberated from his grip.
The clay eyes will glaze. My patients don’t need the
odds stacked on their supermarket’s shelves to take
the trip, to know, what we all want to know about
ourselves: what if that one squeaky neuron, that noise,

that flickering, faulty striplight, were fixed... What
next? You must know, have given some forethought
to where in the forebrain you’d want me to go with that
big old electrode. Me first? Cheeky monkey. Well,
that isn’t brain surgery. I’d find in my otherwise flat

mind the bit that stops me seeing myself in the third
person – like it’s the end sequence to a mediocre movie,
like I should have popcorn – dangling from a flex,
head lolling all Di-with-Bashir endearing. I’ve seen
them all. Me doing the old concrete freefall. Rewind.

Now the bath, half empty or half full of crimson cordial,
the toaster, the splash. The cocktail hour. The train
stop bellyflop. Even the metal-fingered salute. (I mean,
shoot, where would I get one?) It’s not as if I want this,
have the guts, could be so selfish. But, to know, how

my fantasy show could be stopped...it’s more frequent,
intrusive, and I hate that guilty thump in my chest,
deliberate breath, when my daughter looks me in the eye.