He’s been back again.
He’s done that a few times.
He nearly got the job done once or twice.
In the end he fades away and once so vivid
Becomes a cloud.
So far.
But every time he leaves a dark calling card
Imprinted on the eye at the heart of my mind.
Upside-down, mid-air on the motorway
The world seems different, ungrounded, amusing
And life floats past like a sock detached from
Mum’s washing-line.
Haemorrhaging, crawling up cold concrete steps
From a strange car park to a strange hospital in a strange city
Wondering if you’ll make it to A & E
It looks darker, shuddering, nowhere near the edge of serenity.
Falling down a scrubby Mediterranean hillside
With a rocky 90-metre drop below
Spectacles gone on ahead (where are they now?)
Those two peeling blurry eucalypts seem like St Peter’s heavenly arms
When they suddenly catch and suspend you.
And alone on the landing, spasms ripping you apart
Pain like thunder crushing everything
You tell yourself this could be it, but you won’t give in
Then you do give in.
And you wake up and the tubes have done their job.
Single socks, slippery steps, coupled trees, curling catheters
All partial imprints of a signature forming,
Faded but sharpening,
You try to decipher but it won’t focus. Yet.
Time enough for that though.
Kettle’s boiled.
.
Stephen A. Linstead
.