After a while I said to to the man
the surgeon man, the surgeon man
working the catheter
through the artery in my wrist
(which I know now to be called the Radial Gate
— the artery port, not the wrist)
I said, c’mon this has to be bullshit,
all these lights and mirrors
these fractals Mandelbrotting
on the flip-flop
semi-drop
monitor
that’s not my heart
and that octopus ink
spilling like a messy love gone wrong
that’s not my blood
that’s not me — sodden weeds have more colour
and in that Rorschach
you hold my hand
on the wall
ink and water-colour
one grey heron
one legged waiting
pondering the far off depths
— the light of shallow brushstrokes
teasing cursive lips. That heron
he wants you!
He wants you beside him, flesh on flesh,
he wants the nuance of the process:
let all thoughts out
focus on the black that is not black
and I am grey slurred and begging
hushed and
italicised
if not now, then when.
And there you are
mister surgeon man, surgeon man
with your appended
extended
sanitised
non-snag metal maw
chomping bright light into bits and bytes
with pac-man doof-doof
purpling through the sullied pipes of my heart
with no respect for the past loves initialed on the trunk.
Tap rooting through the castings
bark and plaque
an occlusion of
graffiti varicosed in the labyrinth
which brings me to the godly in the vein
reflections in the hippocampus
wherein lies the co-morbidity
the existential
denied
and could you my love fix
this unforgiving hospital pillow.
The blur of nurses, all flounce and gravitas
and your words, my love, are entangled
in the colour coded lines
falling from the ceiling;
your hair over my clay-slip brow
bend closer and I touch your breath
touch blue-leds and motes of sun
but let’s not
talk of
stars or gods,
then again let’s, why not: and
there are no windows
in this stainless cube
on this mattress
wired to
all the hard vowels
sharp discrete
on off
definitely on
definitely not
a stigmata upon a bad gene
blackberries running from the cross
from what to where
cognition nailed
emotions tottering
on a zebra crossing
the school bell ringing
and I was the house-husband proud
eyes on my children dawdling.
The keeper of underwear and promises
bras and unpaired socks
delicates and colours promiscuous
in a dirty cane laundry basket
patching wounds of straw
holding knees
in water sloughing
over the trough
and there again your hair
your berry lips
and what should have been no more than
an abstraction of a concrete poem
beneath a rotary clothesline
became nappies
then divorce
then a lover
and now a lover
so goes a life:
your loud yin-yang dress upon the line
flirting with the southerlies, no remorse
and who will dare the first kiss
will dare
the pinprick chill
between the plip
and
the plop
of a single hard drop
mirrored like a neuron
vertically undefined
in the brevity of the weight
between the tick and the tock
and the one recalcitrant teardrop
the one grey heron divining waves
the one leg
the one pump thump
of winter breaking
dropping zeros and ones
ionised shining upon
the essence
of you beatific in the middle frame
of the triptych on handmade paper, folded
and free standing.
