Visiting Hour

Tack-ack-ack;
Woodpecker pulse, relentless
blood pressure of a city
echoes dull beneath my skull.

Beyond ward mind walls,
those unfeasibly bright curtains
designed to contain diagnosis
or deadened hush, there thrums
a heartbeat. A whoosh, whizz,
dwindling siren; fraught lives
refilled at the petrol pump.

My eyes close for a neurons spat,
we walk our trails again.
His magic mittened hand in mine,
frost sprites tingle, ears blush,
at cute, mischievous angle,
as if poised to catch a punch line
tangled in my well worn tales.

We left no tyre tracks on heather,
no fumes to choke a skylarks call,
while passing, left no mark at all,
just our laughter on the wind,
muddied wellies in the hall.

edit 29.12.09