Danesbury Neurological Centre
On a green hillside we found your clinic,
wrote down our names at the day-bright reception,
took the lift down to floor minus 1 –
in a shared room you sat in a wheelchair,
waved and nodded – and an old man
in a chair by the wall, he smiled too.
You picked up a Sprite in your left hand and – drank.
In the hallway my wife talked to the nurse.
You whispered … everything is difficult …
Ahead of the others, I pushed your chair,
heavier than a shopping trolley,
up the slope in the steep spring garden
and there, brother, we looked out at the world.
Dennis Tomlinson has had many poems published in Blithe Spirit, Lunar Poetry, Time Haiku, other small magazines and anthologies and on the websites Ink, Sweat and Tears and Shot Glass Journal, inter alia. He lives in London