Hamlet in the Scanner

Can’t hear yourself think only the bass line
of a heart thumping. Your head’s clamped.
You can’t move. A panic button slicks

a palm, a soft wet plum. You could be
bounded in a nutshell and count yourself a king
of infinite space if not for this death metal

soundtrack banging in your ears.
Is the rest silence? Wriggling fingers,
toes, fingers, you fidget and flex, as you will –

for anything to do. Otherwise you’re
paralysed with angst. If Ophelia should come
she would not see you as you see yourself –

someone whose life is being examined
whose breath’s short, who swallows his spit.
Did your gaolers slip off for a smoke –

leave you in your ship going nowhere?
Outside, a summer’s day you can’t get to:
more undreamt things, other voices.

Jeff Skinner‘s poems are widely published, most recently in Atrium, Underbelly Press, Black Nore Review, The Aftershock Review. His pamphlet, Us, was shortlisted for the Live Canon pamphlet prize. In July 2023 he was diagnosed with a neuro-degenerative condition.