2

Because of what had happened, no doubt, the fringe

formed by my lashes shaped a kind of lens

that made the sister tremble; the syringe

looked like a worm, one that stretched out and flexed.

And candle-like, the hospital towered up,

and then collapsed, demolished by the flames.

(By something my left shoulder-blade was dubbed

that seemed to be a bird or else a branch,

a winking star, a ray of light fresh-scrubbed,

a wingtip sticking through a cage’s bars,

that then dispatched an autograph ECG,

scrawling across and up and down the chart

of the graph paper.) A voice came: ‘In a state, he

is’. The response, ‘His palms are soaking wet’.

The voices seemed resigned to fate’s decree,

but got more and more hollow, further away,

so much that they could hardly now be heard,

I couldn’t comprehend what it all meant.

I’d taken wing. My head was in a whirl.

Clouds flashed past faster than I could attend.

And for the first time I was given the gift of words,

having traversed half my three score and ten.