Poems for World Day - Poem of the Week
Waiting
Author: Alison
St Christopher's Hospice UK
This room does not appear
on any plans of the house. I enter
through an unmarked door,
find blank walls of bleached calico
around a space stripped of distraction.
A single chair without a cushion,
no artificial flowers or dog-eared
magazines. No scum of congealed
milky coffee. The floor smells of teak
faintly seasoned with salt, like the deck
on a cross-channel ferry. Bare feet explore
cracks between the grainy boards, aware
of lurking splinters. There's no dust,
no noise. The syncopation of my pulse
keeps silent time. The clock has stopped.
It is cool, not quite dark, outside.
The uncurtained window looks beyond
what might be water or bone-hard sand
under a four o'clock sky. Nothing disturbs
that opal interlude before the birds
begin their morning roll-call. Is it my turn
to go? I listen but do not hear my name.
Alison
April 2006
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