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X-Ray

By Dannie Abse b. 1923 Dannie Abse

Some prowl sea-beds, some hurtle to a star

and, mother, some obsessed turn over every stone

or open graves to let that starlight in.

There are men who would open anything.

Harvey, the circulation of the blood,

and Freud, the circulation of our dreams,

pried honourably and honoured are

like all explorers. Men who’d open men.

And those others, mother, with diseases

like great streets named after them: Addison,

Parkinson, Hodgkin—physicians who’d arrive

fast and first on any sour death-bed scene.

I am their slowcoach colleague, half afraid,

incurious. As a boy it was so: you know how

my small hand never teased to pieces

an alarm clock or flensed a perished mouse.

And this larger hand’s the same. It stretches now

out from a white sleeve to hold up, mother,

your X-ray to the glowing screen. My eyes look

but don’t want to; I still don’t want to know.

Dannie Abse, “X-ray” from New and Collected Poems, published by Hutchinson. Used by permission of The Random House Group Limited, http://www.randomhouse.co.uk.

Source: Poetry (February 1979).

Biography

The title of Dannie Abse’s collected poems, White Coat, Purple Coat (1989), refers to his lifelong professions of physician and poet. Of these careers, Abse has stated, “I like to think I’m a poet and Medicine my serious hobby.”

Considered one of the most important Welsh writers of the past century, Abse was born in Cardiff, Wales, to non-Welsh-speaking parents, but has lived mostly in London. His poetry collections include . . .

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