But During the Medicine Round
A tablet missed the medicine pot
and skittered across the clinic room floor.
I picked it up, rolled it between my fingers.
It was not a gelatine pod or a chalky pill.
Thin, leathery roots hung from its bottom.
Two small leaves were fighting
to emerge
from the manufacturers stamp.
I closed my fist around it
and my mind’s eye
looked out on a fresh tilled field
where a hundred plants
used their leaves
as arms
to climb from furrows.
Serpent vines leaped to choke and bite them.
Stuart Charlesworth’s poems have appeared in Cake, Lighthouse, Poetry Review and Under the Radar. He is a learning difficulties nurse and sometimes an associate tutor for student nurses. He has an MA in creative writing (UEA) and degrees in nursing and international politics. He is a Café Writers Committee member.