Hospital Poem
People in the hospital are asking me to leave.
I have overshot my period of complimentary leniency.
The free meals have ceased.
My wheelchair has been confiscated.
They want me out - essentially - and I won’t go.
Soon, the 2024 All Saints Hospital photograph will be taken.
They’ll ferry us out in wheelchairs and gurneys.
They’ll compose the comatose
And arrange the amputees.
The picture will hang
in photo frames and calendars
across this wide and pleasant land.
I missed 2021’s photo by a week
And couldn’t get ill enough in 2023.
I won’t be able to look at my wife if I miss this one,
So I am holding out
Against everybody’s better judgement,
Against everybody’s best wishes,
And elongating my condition,
Throwing myself down stairs
Slamming my fingers in doors
Threatening to pull out all my teeth.
Too much of my life has fallen out the bottom.
If I clamp down, I reason,
Then everything should be mine once more
And the light shall flow over me like gold.
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