I know I’m supposed to be sick….
I know I’m supposed to be sick when
I visit my neighbourhood chemist
After my neighbourhood doctor
Has sent my prescription.
I know, I know I’m supposed to be sick.
Waiting my turn and watching the assistants at work
But looking at the purple eye shadow on
The scarce lids of her far eastern eyes,
Her flat face with it’s shining complexion,
Hearing his accented Dutch
As he explains to the customer the protocol to her treatment
And wondering – where is he from
An apple orchard somewhere East?
Tiny apartment in Warsaw? Village Serbia? Kroatia?
….And admiring her youth and her outlined face
Made more prominent by her tight headscarf
With little sign of her far away ancestors
In her impeccable Hollandse speech.
I know I know I’m supposed t be sick
Waiting my turn and watching the assistants at work.
Taking note of her middle aged body
In her white coat and her white clogs
Opening white drawers or picking up
White paper packets of medicine
In her white hands.
And he, I see could have been my neighbour
In Mumbai or Bangalore or Hyderabad
Should I break out in Hindi –
Here in the middle of Amsterdam?
He waves out to me when I least expect it
On his bicycle and I on mine…. here and there.
I know, I know I’m supposed to be sick
Waiting my turn and watching the assistants at work.
Outside the arms of the windmill turn and the tourists
Pose before it for pictures.
Inside I fantasize about distant places
I have probably never been to while
Waiting my turn and watching the assistants at work.
I know, I know I’m supposed to be sick.
But sitting here on this bench at my neighbourhood chemist’s
I begin to feel the warm glow of good health
Watching the assistants at work.