Mairi MacInnes
The Shock
The moment he reached into the cold machine
he received a colossal kick or jar or jolt
that bumed up his life like paper or oxygen
till a mate threw a switch after four seconds,
though not before he'd cried out 'like a girl',
or thought he'd 'let down' his wife and child,
or wondered who was to blame, if anyone,
until, the current off, he fell on to the floor,
his heart started again, he resumed his life.
Two years on, he'd a scar and a pit in his flesh.
He'd only nightmares now to contend with:
fireworks made him scream, his rage boiled out
when the small child stumbled on the step,
as if he'd die again to hear her cry.
His wife was impatient, even a bit ashamed.
'I don't get it. I mean, all this time!
He dreams he's dying. When's it going to end?'
she said in private to the psychiatrist,
who spoke of bombs and booby traps and guns
making such wounds as his that could persist,
though but one second long, a whole lifetime.
Another year and she would see him changed.
Meanwhile she shouldn't think of right behaviour,
but wait till the mind's wound healed.
The country of suffering she drove home through
was featureless, no one in the fields,
the wolds beyond in cloud.
Look, so she cried. It mattered to no one.
She'd do as she was bid, therefore:
count just for now meaning peripheral,
remember 'a man was more than a Christian':
await, like a cat, the mouse of what and where.
Page(s) 17
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