No figures here but pulse, breath and pressure;
no metonymy of fate but a real hand
cold upon a real sheet.
What could any actor speak more piercing
than this: the dull passage of the day, steady
in its silent leaking through a valve,
passing without acknowledgement,
without an eye-blink or a wave,
just the constant beeping, the mechanics
of death in a noisy room
seven stages above the street
with its rooms full of obdurate facts
where life once made its living.
Click here to read Michael Salcman on the origin of the poem.
Photo: Delivery Room. Licensed under CC 2.0
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