Sometimes he sleeps standing up –

he gathers the billows of the polymer curtain around him –

or he’s lucky and the little bunk, I think it’s up near the nurse’s station,

is free.

Most nights, though, he folds himself up like an extra blanket

and rests among the day splints, just beyond my feet.

He’s been known to roll himself up –

like John Anderson my jo.

I have liked but I have never loved Chagall.

There is something too simple about angels.

He feels the cold even here.

The thick blankets they use are for long service.

At times the tilt table in the special gym is all that’s available.

He’s found a way to stop it swivelling? but he can’t prefer it.

I know this can’t be true, or I’ve come to compensatory new senses.

This all belongs to dream, premonition, déjà vu –

but I am extravagantly awake,

I am open to all messages.

(‘Angel’ only means ‘messenger’.)

Last night, after he thought I was asleep,

he settled down in a basket lined with prescriptions.

He was soon snoring like a food pump.

A little later I saw him, eyes still closed, sitting up,

clutching at a slip.

He cried out, ‘Another prize-winning poem!’,

as if mocking a disgrace.