Most often I spot them way off in the distance: something in the gait and the weight of their symptoms bears the stamp of repeat prescriptions. Sets alarm bells screeching and I turn on a sixpence To cross roads inventing a previous engagement, catch a flower arrangement, bend to tie laces, bury my head in shop windows replete with cheap trinkets. I treat light on my feet but dejected spirits make cock-crow visits, patches of ice combine with the rain to throw me off-balance; I clutch at displacement when meeting ex-patients again.

Or else my elbow shudders at the finger As “Hello stranger!” wraps round my shoulder. I spin to a name that I can't remember; a drug, a diagnosis or simply disorder. The furrowed flesh of distress and despond; failure to bond and exasperation; the trial separation from errant husbands; scars and bruises borne by the infant; the rooted abhorrence roared at the parents have eroded my epithets of empathy, I've shovelled that dirty laundry into yellow plastic bags for waste disposal; I no longer dance to the non-judgemental. What's once contemplated can't be unthought; they take me at face value; I sell them short.

This poem is from The Hippocrates Prize 2011, published by The Hippocrates Prize in association with Top Edge Press. © Raymond Miller.

Chosen by Femi Oyebode.