On Hearing You've Donated Your Body To Medical Science
after Stevie Smith
Your shoes' commonsense clip-clop shuffle,
that voice like seagulls and muscles clenching,
those small, manageable, flat-chested dreams;
how you remained upstanding
as a novice's nightdress while all around
were losing theirs; and someone comparing you
to a wet Tuesday afternoon. Then the kitchen tiles
one by one tumbling, the peeling linoleum.
The father who took forever to die. This is what
they'll think of, what they'll remember
the day Death finally waltzes you
down the corridor to that dark
laboratory.
that voice like seagulls and muscles clenching,
those small, manageable, flat-chested dreams;
how you remained upstanding
as a novice's nightdress while all around
were losing theirs; and someone comparing you
to a wet Tuesday afternoon. Then the kitchen tiles
one by one tumbling, the peeling linoleum.
The father who took forever to die. This is what
they'll think of, what they'll remember
the day Death finally waltzes you
down the corridor to that dark
laboratory.
Page(s) 68
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