{"id":766,"date":"2010-08-04T14:48:00","date_gmt":"2010-08-04T14:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=766"},"modified":"2010-08-04T14:48:00","modified_gmt":"2010-08-04T14:48:00","slug":"lizzy-dening-is-at-the-hospital-with-jackie-wilson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/lizzy-dening-is-at-the-hospital-with-jackie-wilson\/","title":{"rendered":"Lizzy Dening is at the hospital with Jackie Wilson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jackie Wilson<\/span>

After a certain point<\/span>
it\u2019s too late to walk into a movie.<\/span>
When you\u2019ve missed the set-up,<\/span>
the love interest, the plot complications.<\/span>

If you\u2019re in the line for popcorn,<\/span>
when it\u2019s your own life they play out on screen,<\/span>
and you don\u2019t notice it slip past, reel by slow reel. <\/span>

When you\u2019ve missed nine Christmases <\/span>
too many, and they\u2019ve used the same tinsel<\/span>
around the hospital bed, hoping the reflections<\/span>
would bring miracles.<\/span>

The staff played him Reet Petite on a faulty<\/span>
cassette deck, the tape stretched over<\/span>
tuuuuutttttttiiiiiii frrruuuuiiitttttiiii<\/span>
making the nurse consider her sagging<\/span>
breasts as she changed his sheets again.<\/span>

Eventually none of the staff could stand<\/span>
his voice, almost willed him into death<\/span>
just to stop she\u2019s so <\/span>fi-i-i-i-ine<\/span> interrupting<\/span>
their love making, to stop <\/span>o-o-o-ohhh<\/span>
hanging on their frozen breaths.<\/span>

Music was, in fact, the last part of him to die,<\/span>
beating frantically inside like a moth<\/span>
in a milk bottle. With each new bunch of flowers,<\/span>
each nurse on shift change, each approaching<\/span>
Sunday dusk, shifting him further from <\/span>
the girls in high ponytails who clutched his records,<\/span>
covered his face in pink lipstick kisses.<\/span>


*Lizzy Dening<\/span> is a freelance journalist and poet. She has written articles for a variety of magazines, including The Word, Writing Magazine<\/span> and Writer's Forum<\/span>. Her poetry has appeared in publications including The Times<\/span>, Rialto<\/span>, Popshot<\/span>, Pomegranate <\/span>and Orbis.<\/span><\/span>

This poem was first published in Rising <\/span>51<\/span>
       <\/span>
<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jackie WilsonAfter a certain pointit\u2019s too late to walk into a movie.When you\u2019ve missed the set-up,the love interest, the plot complications.If you\u2019re in the line for popcorn,when it\u2019s your own life they play out on screen,and you don\u2019t notice it slip past, reel by slow reel. When you\u2019ve missed nine Christmases too many, and they\u2019ve […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-766","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/766\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}