Status, stagnant,
a slough of pain and despair.
Suspended in relentless sensation,
the world collapsed, folded into my body,
afloat, seasick.
A world too bright, too loud, too odoriferous to be borne
At first, pills, sprays, every orifice a port,
Then, sitting on my toilet, a needle in my thigh.
Pulsating hospital rooms, each expectant,
shrouded in their own fear and pain,
side by side on chairs with invisible partitions.
The doctor: perplexed, defeated?, at sea
as soon as my chart is opened,
the slow drip, drip of an IV,
a briny waterfall, trickling into me.
A tunnel closing to a pinprick of light
with me trapped inside.
⎯
When it begins to lift,
an almost shocking return to myself.
During my absence,
my orchid has begun to re-bloom despite benign neglect,
white and purple blooms, resplendent upon their spike.
The nesting robin under the eaves is mouth-fed by her partner,
as she incubates their second precious clutch,
laid during my illness.
Later, the father sits in my Hawthorn tree,
looks at me, and trills, his tiny red breast quivering like a miniature drum.
Someone turned the lights back on ⎯
And I don’t need to turn them off.
