Complicit

My girl sleeps damp and pale
How did this happen?
The insides of her rebelled and fought against each other

That week in hospital

Drawn and withdrawn
Silent days spent under
Hospital blankets

Me staring day after day
At brick – the Leeds Look

She – days and nights still under
Unyielding white starched sheets

Her veins pierced with a tube
Her eyes blank, listlessly sketching

Just absorbing it all

As the rubbish compactor
Grinds on day and night under the window.

And days slip into a week
And she slips into the nurses routines

Four hourly obs
Meds – doctors rounds.
Lunch dinner and breakfast

On a zoetrope of time
Spinning so it appears we are moving
But yet we lie in the silent room
She on the high bed
Me on the low bed

We are united in our quiet
Complicit in our endurance
Ready
Resigned

For what is to come.

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