Jackie Wilson
After a certain point
it’s too late to walk into a movie.
When you’ve missed the set-up,
the love interest, the plot complications.
If you’re in the line for popcorn,
when it’s your own life they play out on screen,
and you don’t notice it slip past, reel by slow reel.
When you’ve missed nine Christmases
too many, and they’ve used the same tinsel
around the hospital bed, hoping the reflections
would bring miracles.
The staff played him Reet Petite on a faulty
cassette deck, the tape stretched over
tuuuuutttttttiiiiiii frrruuuuiiitttttiiii
making the nurse consider her sagging
breasts as she changed his sheets again.
Eventually none of the staff could stand
his voice, almost willed him into death
just to stop she’s so fi-i-i-i-ine interrupting
their love making, to stop o-o-o-ohhh
hanging on their frozen breaths.
Music was, in fact, the last part of him to die,
beating frantically inside like a moth
in a milk bottle. With each new bunch of flowers,
each nurse on shift change, each approaching
Sunday dusk, shifting him further from
the girls in high ponytails who clutched his records,
covered his face in pink lipstick kisses.
*Lizzy Dening is a freelance journalist and poet. She has written articles for a variety of magazines, including The Word, Writing Magazine and Writer's Forum. Her poetry has appeared in publications including The Times, Rialto, Popshot, Pomegranate and Orbis.
This poem was first published in Rising 51
