Lines For a Female Psychiatrist

Lines for a Female Psychiatrist Perhaps when I’m better I’ll discover you aren’t married, after all, and I should be better by Spring. On that day I’ll walk down Michigan Avenue and up again along the Lake, my back to the wind, facing you, my black raincoat buttoned to the neck, my collar a castle wall around my crew cut growing in. Do you remember the first hour? I sat there unshaven, a Martian drummed from his planet, ordered never to return. With your legs crossed, you smoked the longest cigarette and blinked like a child when I said, “I’m distracted by your knee.” The first six months you smoked four cigarettes a session as I prayed out my litany of escapades, each detail etched perfectly in place. The day we finally changed chairs and I became the patient and you the doctor, you knew that I didn’t know where I had been, where I was then, and even though my hair had begun to grow in how far I'd have to go before I could begin. Donal Mahoney