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John Cornwall

Hospital

The curt corsage of flowers
bloomed in this summer air
cannot ease this whiteness.
It is everywhere, it commands,
forcing out the sense even
at night when the dim lights
ease their sleep in.

The nurse who attends me
like Mary to her son is white,
her hat, her gown, her shoes.
And the doctor who comes
each day at ten wears
the white coat of suspicion,
reeking of medicines and ills

that pervade this place,
this retreat of the indisponed
who cannot help themselves.
There are needles in my arm.
My heart aches with a great
sadness, my heart aches
because of itself.

Last night a woman died.
Quick as white electric
the nurses pulled the curtains
round, mouthing the names

of doctors, coming in seconds
but seconds too late, the wide
arc of her life gone back to ground.

And although I have been here
only two days now it seems
as though the whiteness
has already begun to erase me,
my name at the foot of the bed
half gone, incredible
as foreign languages

that do nothing but harm.
The surgeons will come
for me tomorrow, move
forward and switch me off
like a death, their instruments
attaching themselves to me like
busy hooks.

Then I shall waken to
the dimness of flowers
and the pale faces
of those who have come
to offer solace, to offer
their wishes of good health
not knowing that this whiteness

terrifies the soul and empties
passion out. And no, God
is not here in this place,
his open smile lit with its own
light vanished, gone to somewhere
where whiteness cannot
oppose, somewhere magical

far away from here
as I wish to be, these
moments wearing thin
until the time comes
to leave, taking ailments
home to comfort, leaving
the white eyes of the nurse

behind polishing the last rub
of the dead woman ready
for the morgue which itself
is white, which is the last room
visited before the eye of God
looks down dispirited,

announcing fresh pleasures
somewhere in heaven
which has whiteness of its own.