I am the long corridors now, the early-morning
fresh starched sheets, the efficient cushioned
heel, the brief burr of nicoteine upon the resting
knuckle, the studied, closed bedside manner –I am the newly anodised gospel
which remains unread ’til the last, when idly
spindle-fingered, a cousin intones pale
psalms having read Trevayne unabridged.It is like surfacing for
a moment, hopeful, and then sinking back: the luke
warm words slipping away, leaving only
the silent yearning for Tyndale and dimorphine.
PerPoBlo
A Personal Poetry Blog from Argyll by Charles Dixon-Spain
I Am The Long Corridors Now
Good Grey Mare
Afterwards that good grey mare
galloped off into the deepening
furze of ramsons and scabious,
of spiders stumbling on the dusklight –
summer dowsed under her eye.
Her furrow-straight wake leaned from
the dwindling line of the hearse
as the tractor towed it back.I stood empty-handed, her tack
slung over the gate below my elbows,
pockets full of sweet rolled oats.
Later she came back to me, her
damp hoofprints out of the river,
mane wild with rolling and stampering,
her pink tongue a slick benison
placing the day back into my hands.
