View From a Sick Room (Poetry)

Suburb sick room smelling sweetly,
lavender with camphor spiced,
fresh cologne haunts sheets discreetly -
Irish linen hemmed precise.

Plumped-up pillows dented lightly,
dusty cards crowd both the sills,
flowers bunch and droop politely
over serried rows of pills.

Peace hangs passive, uncomplaining,
where the patient lies enshrined,
introspective, calm-maintaining,
docile countenance resigned...

I would have thought they'd come today -
trudging shops all afternoon,
to pop in on their homeward way
and visit this dried out cocoon

of someone who they used to know
as independent, seldom home,
fated now to undergo
this metamorphic stage alone -

wrapped in sheets - but no bright wing
grows underneath, this worn out shell
won't bear a new form fluttering
where age has spun its sickly spell.

No visitors, no empty chat
too careful with each word and look,
small talk of trifles - this and that -
avoiding truth. Take up a book

or magazine, slow minutes pass
as sun, unbidden, enters in,
bustling through the dust-streaked glass -
a beaming aunt sick-visiting.

Across the town the church clock sounds
and nurse will bring the tea-tray soon,
the sun and I will share two rounds
of sandwiches this afternoon

and listen to that distant drone
of traffic inching, bit by bit,
commuting from the working zone
to leafy lanes and drinks at six.

In avenues a sense of waiting -
hanging baskets bravely trail,
ivied walls grow suffocating,
hiding boards that say For Sale.

And nets like eyelids droop and flutter,
blur my window's weary eye,
hear sharp gravel spray the gutter,
sense the real world passing by,

feel the backwash of its hurry
gently surge against the fence,
recollect that daily worry
ruled by time and pounds and pence.

Solitude's the last requirement -
keeps nostalgia in its place -
tucked in cul-de-sac'ed retirement,
pensioned from the useful race

who go about their earthly passions,
humdrum chores - the daily grind -
glimpsing in their pre-packed rations
those crumbs of guilt love left behind.

The sun has gone and evening draws
its banded blinds across the lawn
and songbirds in the orchard pause
to drink more notes as pink sky warms

old memories and in that gloom
clear resurrected faces crowd
this much-too-sterile patient room
with gossiping, but not too loud.

"No visitors, then?" as nurse wheels in the trolley
and fusses with napkins and doilies and such,
her role-playing smile, angel lips painted jolly
to cheer up the dying - it doesn't hurt much.

"Just a few sunbeams" the answer comes slowly,
"and family ghosts from the old part of town."
Nurse crosses herself, her expression near-holy,
then changes the subject with starched-apron frown.

She pours and the splash of the yellow-brown liquor
fills up the silence - the two of us stew -
and neither one mentions the light's sudden flicker
the moment I spoke of a subject taboo.

And later, much later, the radio's blending
with bland conversation so carefully picked,
the spirits and I humour nurse at her mending -
sensitive, caring and Catholic-strict.

As our dialogue drifts, phantom boats slip their mooring,
meaningless words fill dark sails with relief,
safe from truth's rocks, homely platitudes pouring
while time sneaks away like an indolent thief

in the tip-toeing night, stretching endless, beguiling,
reality checked by a "let's pretend" game
urgently played, the participants smiling,
hide from each other the knowledge of pain.

Small hours crawl stiff-fingered, numbly
count the cells degenerate,
introspective fears fought dumbly
feel the closing hands of fate .

In antiseptic isolation,
trapped inside this chintzy tomb,
aching for reincarnation -
access to the living room -

rebellious imagination
jumps all barriers and seeks
break-through cures, rejuvenation,
proven healing-hands techniques.

But tired, the worn out spirit cowers,
wills the ticking minutes stop,
focuses on fading flowers,
waiting 'til their petals drop.

Waiting 'til sleep's mystic river
gathers all its dreamers in -
drifting souls the tides deliver
as the lights of home grow dim

and distant. And a dark moth bruises
frantic wings against the glow
of faith - when constant heart refuses
wistful thoughts of letting go.

Dawnlight sickroom, tended neatly,
traps the brooding foetal shape
severed from the world completely,
contemplates that great escape...