~ANNE BRITTING
BOWMAN~
LOOKING
BACK UP THE HOSPITAL DRIVE
They do not come easily
to me, these words
like glass in my mouth, cutting until
I taste blood:
the blood whispering through the chambers
of an enlarged heart, failing
the old woman at the upstairs window.
Is she real, or an old reflection, standing
with an upraised hand, waving
or patting hair into place?
This place with the barred windows, gray
in stone, in hair, in face, in clothing,
all color wasting away,
washed away like the ink on a letter
left to suffer the laundry, forgotten
in a pocket, words never sent, never read.
© by Anne Britting
Bowman
