Andy Jackson

QUASIMODO

I am twelve when they tease you into me, name-first.
With your fist around my spine as I try to grow up
into my own upright self, I am quiet, think you small,
like you might climb out while I yawn or piss or sleep.

Your nest of collected sticks grows in this belfry chest.
Afraid and facing away, I blur mirrors with spit and hide
behind excuses to not take off my shirt at the beach.
The thin white frames of schoolgirls rise like lighthouses.

They call out my name in voices I have thrown.
No-one is saved. Through my eyes, the flickering
fires you fuel are signs. Men begin to close in,
waving their torches of word and fist. I fix a rope

to my mouth and lower myself down inside.
These bones enclose a flapping of echoes, what darkness
can't silence. Tendrils reach for my legs, memories
begging to be fed. But at last I clutch your throat

and haul you out. Your face is white and wet,
your bottom lip trembling with the weight of our shape.
You smell of the filth and luck of cul-de-sacs, your home,
my flesh. My arms reach around your swollen bulk

before I can think or flinch. We are two halves
of a heart stitched together with myth. Over my shoulder
you stare out to where the sun re-enacts its death.
Against your hump, my soft skin sweats and breathes.

* * *

DESENSITIZED

The slide and clunk as books are returned
is the loudest sound here. Crash Course
in Neurology. Ophthalmology Made Easy.
A Colour Atlas of Infectious Diseases.

My hip-joint clicks as I walk the aisles,
push the slumped textbooks back to vertical.
The dividers are never strong enough.
Symptoms in the Mind. Atlas of the Human

skeleton. Clear-faced young doctors
tap and frown through research as I pass.
I am still waiting for someone to ask me
for my family history, to take off my shirt.

Pocket Psychiatry. The Care of Wounds.
I catalogue journals, cover new books, each
time finding the small relief of the right place
on the shelf – meditation without transcendence.

Spines must be desensitised, due dates stamped.
The young woman smiles politely as she
loads her bag with concepts we can't share.
The scanner blips its rhythm, like life-support.

A System of Signs. The Biology of the Skin.
At a corral in a dark corner, a doctor
leans over the latest encyclopedia,
lost in a moment of sleep.

* * *

THE RIVER

She tells me, I have every lifestyle disease
there is for an Indian, and lists them –
diabetes, allergies, high blood pressure,
anxiety. The trigger, her trip to America.

I ask her what the health system's like here.
It's who you know. Totally who you know.
A waiter fills our glasses with bottled water.

The AC blasts ice-cold air around us.
A string of notable faces on TV pay tribute
to the Assamese composer who just died.
Multiple organ failure, eighty-five.

The meal is delicate and complex – curry
leaves, tamarind, chilli, white beans, tomato,
so much I can't quite place. We agree

you just have to accept suffering – the river
always breaks its banks, washes us
away. Her husband, who I came to meet,
pays for the meal. Using his crutch, he

lifts himself out of his chair, staggers,
following us slowly towards the door –
I am far from the only person in this category.

Waiters help him collapse into the hotel's
complimentary metal wheelchair.
Their driver meets us at the gate. We pass
the guardhouse, inch back into gridlock.

* * *

HANSEN'S DISEASE

At first, you go on working, with the same
knives, hammers and fire. But time
and the slightest dip in attention will take a finger,

a hand or a foot. You don't feel anything, but
wonder what to do. If they see you
with that doctor, you will never be married.

Here, people spit after saying korhia,
so the word won't contaminate their mouths.
The bacteria is easily dealt with – the name

is a sentence and highly contagious. Now and then,
one of us will trade a piece of flesh for
a bit more rice and money. The sight of stumps,

or what bloodied bandages imply, pays off.
And the pilgrims all walk past us
on their way to Mother Ganga – into our hands

they cast their sins. Now you tell me –
who are the true priests of the ghats? She says
this without gestures, with her hands hidden.

Andy Jackson's collection, Among the Regulars (papertiger media, 2010) was shortlisted for the Kenneth Slessor Prize. His poems "Secessionist" won the 2008 Rosemary Dobson Prize. In 2011, he was an Asialink resident at Chennai, India, where he began a series of poems exploring the medical tourism industry. He blogs at amongtheregulars.wordpress.com.