Kate Ling
The Visit
for EW
Years later I return to the hospital
as though I’ve walked asleep in this direction
and let doors fall behind me in slow motion
to shut with the gentle fit of wood on metal.
As I disinfect my hands with alcohol
the outside world becomes a place of fiction,
the ward a kind of timeless holding station
between this minute and the next. I feel
responsible for no-one. I hear nurses
speak the truth. They hold time upside-down.
In the curtained room, breathing warm air,
I see that in your absence what has grown
is this hollow need to witness in reverse
those unmarked afternoons, this bed, this chair.
as though I’ve walked asleep in this direction
and let doors fall behind me in slow motion
to shut with the gentle fit of wood on metal.
As I disinfect my hands with alcohol
the outside world becomes a place of fiction,
the ward a kind of timeless holding station
between this minute and the next. I feel
responsible for no-one. I hear nurses
speak the truth. They hold time upside-down.
In the curtained room, breathing warm air,
I see that in your absence what has grown
is this hollow need to witness in reverse
those unmarked afternoons, this bed, this chair.
Page(s) 17
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The