A colonoscopy is a gift to stop me from following my father to his grave

Cancer screenings save countless lives every year, as Frieda Hughes, whose father died of colon cancer and who undergoes regular colonoscopies as a result, knows only too well

Colonoscopy weekend

It’s what I don’t think of once it’s done;

I travel the length of my colon,

My eyes on the colonoscopy screen for the tunnel view

Of my internal architecture.

A man I hope never to meet

Over a table at dinner with friends

Examines me from the wrong end on a Sunday,

Looking for anomalies I hope he’ll never find

Lest I follow my father.

I think of it as a holiday.

Other days vanish into obscurity,

Cluttered with the business of life

Like bags of shopping that I unload

Into the cupboard of a night’s sleep,

But here, I am made to rest with a cup of tea

And read a book while my blood pressure climbs,

As if the ceiling will not hit the floor,

As if buildings will not topple,

As if the birds will keep flying,

Until I get out of the hospital door.