Clock

When was the last time?
I sketch your legs
Strangely foreshortened
Then the door
Anything
ROOM 1
With the pen from my bag
Your feet
The lines fill the sheet
Like your legs
As the flimsy dividing curtain flutters
Like your eyelids
As the men in strange clogs
Push the needle right in
And you’re out

Somehow I’ve walked to the canteen
They’re just serving
There’s a very small man
There’s fish pie
I couldn’t eat when you couldn’t
My father rings to hear the news he’s already heard
The potato sticks in my throat as my battery goes dead
I decide to stand
Then you come in
I’m suddenly in front of you crying
You lend me your phone
I go back to the room and sit next to where the bed was
And wait

You phone me on your phone using someone else’s phone
To tell me you can use someone else’s phone
Meanwhile he rings me back and thinks I’m you
Then he rings me and I think I’m you
Then the nurse comes in and tells me I can go

You’ve told them all you like them
You’re still high
I want to tell them all I love them
I’m made of glass
I’m still 45
And I realise there’s still time