Anna Crowe
After ‘The Healing of Deacon Justinian’ by Fra Angelico
For Tony Crowe
A taut white sheet, a water-flask and glass
set on the locker, and under the simple bed
the neat diaconal slippers. Waiting for bliss,
Justinian misses the visitors overhead:
Gosmas and Damian, whom we now recognise
by their red bonnets, have just swum in and tread
a wisp of cloud. We picture his surprise,
waking to meet them, note the jar of physic
each one carries: this time, no-one dies.
This time is also now, where you are sick
in a room as bare as his. Your mind unlocks
a thousand shelves, riffling pages - a quick
flick through India, the army, art-school, socks.
How can I meet these people without my slippers?
you beg, wildly, over and over. What shocks
is not the indignities from catheters,
but the simplicity of your incoherence.
To questions plain as this we have no answers.
Page(s) 31
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