Sid Thomas
Blue
Outstretched on a marble table
the friend I knew, grew up with -
floats in fluorescence.
His wide awake eyes,
that always danced, are still-
set in a mask with pinched nostrils.
I close the lids and gaping jaw
(gobsmacked by its own mortality.)
Lather his face.
Massaging his limbs to distribute
the torpid blue through his body,
I picture him a boy, playing madcap pranks
on the frozen lake. His arms
two woollen windmills, he skates
across the ice, spins out of control -
Then up through the crack, his anorak
slowly inflates like an empty life-raft -
Face shaved. Hands washed. I place them
over the umbilical in repose.
Fold right over left, but knowing him
place left over right.
I stand and stare at his waxy face. Waiting.
They wrapped him in blankets
and laid him on the bank:
pumped his arms like wings,
till his lips dripped water -
the dregs of a summer drought.
As ambulance men squeezed his chest,
sleet skittered over the tightening ice,
stuck to his blue face. They shook their heads,
breathed on stiff fingers. But with a sneeze -
the boy from next door sat up,
his nose bubbling like spawn.
I close the embalming room door.
Press my ear to it, listen
as the heating switch clicks off
and water bubbles in the pipes -
Page(s) 66-67
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