‘Diplomats’ by John Harris

After the results of the biopsy
He stays silent for a while,
Smoking slowly and deliberately,
Then begins to talk about the Volvo,
What needs to be done to get it on the road.
Almost recovering that air of Sinatra
When he puts his hat on.

He tumbles into the passenger seat,
Songless and uncertain,
Searching for the elements
Of a broadly heroic attitude,
Opening the door from time to time to get sick,
Closing it after a two-minute silence
To begin again.

Each new low
Now willed as a new normality,
As he hauls his crushed geometry
Through the narrow roads of Clondalkin,
Scanning the treeless greens and cul-de-sacs,
For the turn-off at Newland’s Cross.

We drive south for two hundred miles.
The heater labouring against the cold,
As we grow more alone
In the mapless spaces of the new motorway,
His cigarette glowing on/off in the foggy black,
Morse code for his Mayday, Mayday.

Back home a reading lamp
Glows steadily into the small hours
As he goes through the latest bulletins.
Sometime after four a.m.
He begins to take in oxygen,
Headphones still on,
Listening to some remote radio station.

The room bunker-full of medical paraphernalia,
The commode, the makeshift alarm bell.
The vibration and shudder of the fan
As it mills the tropical heat.
And we speak as trained diplomats
Until he grows tired and slumps asleep.
The oxygen hisses. The mask slips.

From issue #2: spring/summer 2016

About the Author
John Harris grew up in Cork and now lives in Dublin. He is a Fellow Emeritus of Trinity College where he was Associate Professor of Psycholinguistics. His entry for the 2015 Patrick Kavanagh Poetry Award was highly commended. A short memoir, ‘Van Men’, is included in the 2015 Fish Anthology.