Piker Press — Weekly Journal of Arts and Literature
April 27, 2026

Appointment

"...the major tear-off bit attached, doctor’s scribble, notorious..."

Appointment

Who allocates out-patient rooms,
departments, as if body parts,
elementary, blocked canal?

Internal map, a circuit board,
old teaching aid, blood systems guide,
beside bare bones, skeleton hung.

Some bible tracts from chaplain’s rack,
Qur’anic, ecumenical,
to salve across the deeper wounds.

Why printed on a minor slip,
the major tear-off bit attached,
doctor’s scribble, notorious.

In crabby hand, ‘oncology’,
as numbness wears, old feeling comes,
the anaesthetic, current shock.







Article © Stephen Kingsnorth. All rights reserved.
Published in the March 27, 2023 issue .
Image(s) are public domain.
More by Stephen Kingsnorth → More poetry → Full issue →
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