Drawing by Judith Wolfe
Belinda Campbell

Poem


      LADY KATE

      Lying still.
      Hospital blankets meet
      her shoulders, and flowers,
      which they have placed,
      lie neatly on her chest.
      Eyes closed gently
      she looks so
      at peace.
      Her mouth
      slightly open. As it is
      when she has dozed in front
      of the telly.

      She is so dead,
      and yet
      as I sit staring at her face
      I feel at any moment
      she will turn
      and face me. A flicker of an
      eyelid, a sound of her breathing.

      Nothing.

      Just a pale faced body
      that I am scared to touch
      for fear that it will be
      ice cold.
      Tears soak my cheeks
      as I angrily try
      to fight them back.
      I wish I wasn't here,
      but at the same time
      I don't want
      to leave.


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