Do You Know Why You’re Here?
nancy viva davis Halifax, School of Health Policy & Management
York University
nhalifax [at] yorku [dot] ca
DO YOU KNOW WHY YOU’RE HERE ?
outside a red brick building a bright
late summer day people kept
cancelled part of
re-development inside a room
inside the building are a dog & a woman
the dog leans the woman's hands rest
beneath the dog's harness people
try to find remember before
they are called to enter the long &
narrow rooms where men sit by closed
windows & patient
chairs sit close to doors
when their turn is called
the woman & the dog slowly walk the hall
the man gestures : sit introduces himself
the woman sits on the close-to-the-door
easywash brown plastic patient chair & the dog leans
“do you know why you’re here?” he asks & the woman knows
the question is not alone or hers
she is not sure her mother
a colour she no longer
remembers
his answer
in a room unbroken
by light
curled into a restless ball
beside the dog
left in a room the woman
thinks something
“my doctor referred me”
something this man
could give her
a harness compounds would adhere
her neurons pharmaceuticals
metabolized & excreted
unregulated
she remembers some forget her
as she passes through
“do you know why you’re here ?”
the dog rises
clambers across her knees
leans against her
heart their chests rise & fall
“do you know why you’re here?”