Styx
A felt-tip pushing back the skin. Spotlights.
The high-pitched wailing of a sternal drill.
Latex gloves, polyester gauze, brute strength.
Then the ribcage lurching wide to surface
a cleft-lipped, peach-like underearth.
Next the forceps’ lyre-string intricacy,
needles releasing pressure valves,
scar tissue forming like an ocean trench.
Then the surgeons coming up for air – you
still weepy in your undone dressing gown.
William Thompson was born in Cambridgeshire in 1991. His work has appeared in Lighthouse, The Cannon’s Mouth, Stonecoast Review, Bird’s Thumb Poetry and the Bristol Poetry Anthology 2017.