You occupy silent space
Leaving you, looking back
for Hazel
It started with an alien thing
tracked in the deep space of your body,
sucking a kidney. Expelled with its prize,
but not before a tumour-stream of stars
metastasises, bright on the screen.
–
I’m imagining crystals you said,
weeks later, shining inside.
Sitting with you at home,
spring sunlight shifts the goldfish
in the pond, nuzzles out-nosing bulbs.
–
The air around you inhales
and stops.
You occupy silent space
whilst sounds surround you –
kitchen-business, radio, birds.
–
Nights dislocate. You finger fear
along the edge of hours – stay with me.
Oh, but you travelled wildly those nights.
Barbados, Hawaii, memory’s miasma
glittering, hijacking the dark.
–
In freefall now, in the half-light
of your hospital room the fragments
of your still-embodied self unravel.
Help me stand you beg
but I can’t – your atrophied weight
too great, too frail
–
instead I press my palms
into your soles hard,
pushing my guilt against you.
I am your ground now.
It isn’t enough.
Sue Proffitt
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