#singpowrimoday5 #alfiansaat #singpowrimo #poetrychallenge5 Scenes from Ward 48 Beside her bed: An empty chair, Which the nurse Adjusts to face Nowhere. Along the corridor Three women Are choking their wails Into tissue balls, Utterly undone. They are avoided Like how the strongest swimmers Stay away from Some quarry lakes. A different species Of chambermaid returns here With face mask And sterilising spray. But there is still the soiled linen, To be replaced with virgin sheets. Still the duty to scrub away Germs, residue, Aura, shadow. The X-ray, the blood sample Is never mere investigation. It is the beginning of the body Unraveling, its dissolution, Its sense that it is no longer intact. By the side of the man With a collapsed lung: A tethered, metallic balloon Bobbing in the air Like irony or hope.
Posted on: Sun, 06 Apr 2014 15:43:26 +0000