All She Can by John Grey

The Sick Man
The Quiver: An Illustrated Magazine for Sunday and General Reading
(London: Cassell & Company, 1891) 372

All she can imagine

is a city street,

late at night.

The only sign of life

is a man she knows

stumbling from a barroom.

All she can attend to

is the man in the bed.

A granite bulkhead posing as flesh.

Face known only to

a pillow.

All she can hear are moans.

The bed is in pain.

The man won’t die.

His complaints are too theatrical.

He never once says her name.

Just, “Get me a bucket will you.”

All she can do

is plop a bucket down by

his side of the bed.

His cheeks are pale as tombstones.

His guts are on the move.

All she can see are walls.

Direction stops when the room does.

It’s almost a coffin.

The only sign of life

sprays the plastic bottom.

All she can feel is pity.

But feeling has to start somewhere.

*****

John Grey is an Australian poet, US resident. Recently published in Sin Fronteras, Dalhousie Review and Qwerty with work upcoming in Plainsongs, Willard and Maple and Connecticut River Review.