The Doctor’s Car
In a time long-gone
when fever set in,
spots or swelling,
a call to the doctor
brought him round
in his Jaguar, our
suburb’s only one.
His wife had picked
up the phone in
their kitchen, saying:
I’ll let him know -
he won’t be long.
When it was fevers,
he never was.
Part of the cure
was seeing him
through front curtains
slow up at the kerb
near our front hedge,
park, step from the Jag,
lift after him his
potent black bag,
a Gladstone no less,
ring our doorbell,
doff his dark hat;
check your pulse,
big dark hand on
your tiny wrist,
with a fob watch
slid from the vest
of his dark suit;
voice gruff-tender
directed at Mother,
child a mere
overhearer.
He’d shake his
thermometer,
stow it, saying:
He’ll soon be better.
You did get better,
these things passed,
flu, measles, mumps.
The wallpaper stopped
swirling with snakes,
ears that had popped
rested; the shakes,
delirium, faded.
What had he prescribed?
Rest, lemon drinks,
something pink
in a square bottle
from the chemist,
maybe a promise
of a second visit
with the rare purr
of his Jaguar.
Glimpsed thereafter
on the streets we shared,
the doctor’s dark Jaguar
ferried him quietly to
families in need,
even to Grandma’s
the day she died.
Her undertaker's
fleet were Daimlers.
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