KNEE BRACE PRESS

A place for stories about chronic illness, disability, mental health, and neurodivergence.

A Drop of Red

By

There was a grape
Wedged between the drip
and the cupboard.
Missed by the cleaners who didn’t want to disturb the tubes and wires
At night, he would lie on his side and watch it
Trying to remember its colour before the lights went out
Comparing it in the morning
Bruised and wrinkled.
He wondered if it could still make wine
A thimble.
If there was something that could be done
Too late.
Yet, sometimes, just after breakfast
When he had brushed the toast crumbs from his chin and wiped the jam from his fingers
The sun would catch in such a way
Flaring the brown a fantastic red
Cutting a ruby on the floor
Before fading back to a grape between the tubes
and the doctors’ feet.

Contributor

  • A white man sits in a black wheelchair and smiles to something off-camera. He wears a blue baseball hat and a green sweatshirt.

    Andrew Hall is a ginger-haired disabled writer and alternative film poster maker from the United Kingdom, and he finds that whole situation simply hilarious. His poetry and short stories have been published in various places such as Magma Poetry, Variant Literature, and Owl Canyon Press – he can be found on Twitter: @CripOnATrip21.