John Gurney
The Porter
Stiff
with heaving schizophrenia round the wards,
you stand there like the spirit of the place,
watching.
as the next half-rotten Odyssey
sails through the doors,
patient,
as some surrogate Machaon takes
the tin wing to the Butterfly.
The dead walk by, the shells of sense,
all thought cut out.
No doubt you’re my illusion too:
today you seem more human than
the adversaries of madness, those
that flick the insect from the lotus,
and announce an amnesty as cure.
I, who lived time’s epitaph,
move to the door. You smile.
I find
there is a curious kindness in the mind.
Page(s) 47
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