The last full-stop
The good news is she won’t be here
much longer. They wheel the bed out
of the ward with her still in it.
She’s in luck. A single room’s
come free. We save them for the…
words trail away to the end room.
They push her in; there’s one door out.
‘This is better,’ I say. ‘Nothing
to disturb you. And you’ve got a view.’
‘I can’t see owt,’ she says. ‘Nobbut
a brick wall.’ Seven storeys pocked with
ten closed windows, plain and square.
Seventy undivided panes,
steel framed and bleak as March.
Next morning she’s sitting up smiling.
‘That foreign nurse brought me a book.’
I leave her favourite biscuits, tissues,
Ribena and the hairbrush we forgot
in all the rush. Good Housekeeping
and People’s Friend go back into the bag.
‘I’d sooner have sommat that’ll last.’
Normal times are waived so visiting drags
on and on. Thirty April days ticked off;
the marker shows she’s only halfway through.
‘I’m sure there are better books at home
or how about a Catherine Cookson
from the library?’ No need to trouble.
‘I’m on with this one now.’
She talks of far-off time I never knew.
Hours crawl. Days and weeks.
In between the pages turn exceeding slow.
‘Shall I read some to you?’ She shakes
her head. ‘I’ll get through it myself.’
She shuts out sound and sight,
her mind is free and I am yet unborn.
Her teeth stay in the Steradent;
she hangs onto her specs, but the eyes
behind them seldom bother opening
just for me. I stare through glass
to wall of brick. She lifts her lids
and three score years and ten stare back
beyond a world I cannot see.
One day the bookmark’s gone.
‘You’ve finished it?’
She nods. ‘It wasn’t much of a story.’