Brain Scan

First came the dizziness,
a sense of disconnection,
as if I were floating somewhere
between the piazza's marbled floor
and the glass dome of the atrium.
You grabbed me as my knees buckled,
lowered me to the ground,
crowds gathering to watch –
such a public place to collapse,
so bright and white, so theatrical.

I remember the paramedic,
his cool fingers on my wrist,
his voice calm and reassuring.
The beacon of ambulance blue
sweeping across the carpark
before the doors swung shut.

Later the whirr of radiology,
the mechanics of diagnosis,
a nurse holding out her open hand,
five purple tablets, a cup of water,
her palm bathed in fuchsia light.

Revealed at the scanner's centre,
barely human: a collection of synapses,
a puzzle waiting to be solved.