alone

by An Melis

 

Alone here in the night

I hear the screaming wind;

The bed is lumps; the gown is course

Onto the cold, I’m pinned.

 

The ward is jammed with patients pale

Who breath their oxygen;

While screens beep loud and piss and moan

Keep captives in their den.

 

If sighs could kill, I’d deck each nurse

Who pricks me with the needle;

To suck more blood and wrap more tape

That makes me shake and wheedle.

 

I go for broke, adorn a mask

And gingerly move out to hall;

Midst interns, aids and techs

“Who is that patient holding onto wall?”

 

“Tight pain! blow out” I pant for breath

Lift up my swollen lungs

Go up! Go up! you rooted trees

Rise up you violet tongues!

 

The light, it came to burnish me

Upon my humble bed and lifted me;

Onto a throne that rested to the right

Of Him who held all majesty!

 

poem by Jeanne