Outpatient
Take a half-shower
Sit at the edge of the bath, feet wet
Shower head unscrewed, hose lying flaccid in the bath
Belching out lukewarm water over overgrown toenails
Walk around the house bumping into things
Giggle like a child, bump like a Roomba
Bang head, hard
Check the biscuit tin
Imagine yourself with hollow bones
Bones crack when anything occurs
Find yourself in the kitchen
Leave the kitchen
Gaze at white expanse of arm
Take up jogging! (soon)
Decide to submit a poem and
Trawl the internet for journals
This one is in Mid-West Ohio
Which itself is Mid-West
The Mid-West of the Mid-West of the Mid-West of the Mid-West of the
Calculate and
Memorise Pi to
Seventeen decimal places
Check the biscuit tin
Climb stairs with sudden burst of speed
Descend ghostly in nightie, unsure why you climbed
Eighteen decimal places
Leave the kitchen
Count tiles in the-
Leave the kitchen
Do the smallest thing to pass the longest time
When the hospital won’t take you
Elizabeth McGeown is from Belfast, NI. She has had poetry published in Banshee, Abridged and The Blue Nib. She has been a finalist in the All-Ireland Poetry Slam four times, performing at the 2019 Hammer & Tongue UK Slam Finals.