Home thoughts from home

Writing from the Body  INVISIBLE WOMEN She loved swimming up and down the pool, the ritual of the programme, 6 lengths of breaststroke, 6 of crawl, the rhythm of it was comforting and satisfying. She felt virtuous, the throbbing of her heart and lungs after a length in one breath satisfyingly complete. It was a solo activity, really, but occasionally a friend joined her for it, but both did the same tasks, firing each other up to greater speeds. She began to understand the concept of the pace-maker. They worked well together, each with strengths in different strokes. It was lunchtime so often the pool was virtually empty. Maybe a couple of business man chatting in the Jacuzzi, or a guy who’d told her friend he was learning to swim via the internet, and ploughed up and down the lanes with an odd stroke.  Not a social time; people who were in this pool were here to swim. This day, the pool was empty when they arrived and they experienced the  gorgeous feeling of br

Sonnet On Sudden Death A hand turned upwards holds Only a single, transparent question The ‘why’ that fortune has not told The shock of her untimely action Anticipation of a routine day Shot through with lamentation The future no longer ‘come what may’ Tainted with terrible expectation The other question arises where ’Why not me’, I hear again My parents’ voice, Life isn’t Fair, Suffering for all, their share of pain From this day take each moment as the last Cherish the friendship, reach out and hold fast.

Fingertips They arrive on the bay with due status, as if a fanfare has blown. It’s the ward round. The Consultant, his Registrars, and in the rear,  the student doctors, one anxiously carrying a sheaf of papers whilst attempting to make notes of the words the Great God Consultant will  pronounce. All the faces gather around her bed – they don’t make any eye contact with her, look only at the torso as the nurses pull back the dressings. He pulls his disposable gloves on, and then uses his fingertips to poke around in her revealed insides, where the skin has gone, and open interior gapes. ‘See’ he says, pointing, ‘this thickening here means the wound is beginning to close from below, from the inside out. We have to hope that no infections is sealed in underneath.’ ‘Hope’, she thinks. ‘We have to hope .’ Is that the best she can be offered? ‘Trust me’, his body language insists, ‘I am the God Consultant and I know what I’m doing’. And underneath she detects a small hint o