SUSPENDED SENTENCE

Love, at its best, can a safe refuge. It can also become a prison.

A POEM ABOUT LOVE

The ward is white and clinical:
tiles underfoot, strip-lights above.
The nurses kind but cynical.
This is a poem about love.

One moment all was well, then not,
and since that day, you have not stirred.
They say, have hope, but I cannot.
I speak your name: it goes unheard.

Young nurses come, young nurses fuss:
they check the tubes that give you air,
that wrap you like an octopus
as you lie sleeping, unaware.

This is a poem about love,
how love endures, how love survives
and how, when push turns into shove,
though strength has gone, more strength arrives.

Time stopped for us the dreadful day
you stopped, so now I too mark time
and try to keep despair at bay
with poetry and mumbled rhyme.

A tent of clear, enfolding mesh
cocoons you like a fine lace glove:
I cannot even touch your flesh.
This is a poem about love.

Immobile, comatose you lie,
a captured bird that yearns for flight.
We hang suspended, you and I
like sleepers between night and light.