Vernon Scannell
The Year of the Crab
Going Home
The daily dosages of radiation are now finished.
External and internal flesh of throat and neck
simmers with sores. The marvel, Morphine, holds
the pain away. He has not swallowed food or drink
for months; the nasogastric tube is still in place,
it trails, escaped spaghetti, from his nose
to be attached to feeding-pump four times each day.
His love learns from the nurses how to handle this,
what drugs and in what quantities to give,
and then he is released to leave for home
where all his nursing will be done
by unofficial care which, uncomplaining, works
on every shift with only gratitude for wage.
Although it takes stretched months
and two returns to hospital before
he can attempt to eat as others do,
the time draws slowly closer and, at last, he hears,
if only faintly, that low growl and purr
of powerful aero-engines, fuelled now
for long-delayed escape to winter warmth,
the land where orange-blossom stains soft air
when sleet and snow enshroud the fields of home,
a place of soft, slow rhythms, real Cockaigne
which not long since, in misery and pain,
he feared that he would never see again.
Page(s) 52-53
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