Elizabeth Bewick
Ice Hockey at the Day Hospital
for Dr J. Duffy
Special Delivery:
collected each Monday morning –
too early for my liking –
welcomed with kind words,
comforting cups of tea
coffee, and rich tea biscuits.
Expected to relax
and chat to our neighbour –
mine is usually asleep so I make
an effort to talk to someone else,
exchange symptoms and small talk
across the intervening table.
Slowly the circle
fills; I am carried off to have
a memory test: name, date of birth,
today’s date, count backwards
from twenty to nought. Nothing wrong
with your memory, sister says.
Little does she know
how I search for words sometimes,
struggle with the shape of what
is in my head, can’t give it a name.
But for now I am accepted,
returned to the circle; exercises next.
Simple stretching that
is surprisingly difficult, parallel bars,
obstacles to step over, balls to bounce,
hoops to throw, wobbly rubber mats
to balance on and a fair imitation
of Winchester High Street to negotiate.
Netball for a change
soft balls to throw into a low net;
a fierce game of ice-hockey
two opposing teams with plastic sticks
and pucks. I score a goal –
my first ever – and am roundly cheered.
Variously exhausted
we gather in threesomes for lunch:
I talk to a quiet man who suddenly says
he retired early to have time with his wife,
he still misses her; I manage a smile
and a few words that I hope he hears.
Page(s) 49
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