Poetry Magazines - The best collection of poetry magazines online - Simon Armitage

(i) Flat

After my first fall, social services interfering — all that paraphernalia
so I can stay in my own home. As well as the usual:
              visual bell for The Deaf
              some things to make the mattress higher
              Bleep alarm medallion
                         (I don’t wear it)

New upstairs neighbour poking her nose in
calling the ambulance in the middle of the night when I fell in the kitchen
Carted off to hospital against my will.
                   (I won’t be coming back)

(ii) Hospital

Young doctor asking if I prefer Lizzie or Elizabeth                        (Well, Mrs Brigadier Crowhurst really, but Mrs Crowhurst will
                                                                                                do)
hair in a complete mess
glasses perched above horrid oxygen mask with tube
toothless, in an open-back hospital nightie
hooked up to the drips: glucose, antibiotics
plugged into the catheter
padded for ‘double incontinence’
              (let them just get on with it)

Hearing aid — switched off on the bedside table
Nurses shouting at me as though I’m stupid —
not taking enough time and trouble to fi gure out
how to fi t the contraption in my left ear using the KY jelly... ...
which stops it squeaking and wailing
They shout in my stone deaf ear
instead of the one with a glimmer

Talking nonsense before I sink into the coma
             (put the kettle on, I’ll kill you)
Losing control
             (let me get up, please, please; I promise I’ll be good)

Dying in a 6 bed public ward
              (in front of other people — but not my family)