Francis

He sleeps in a place with no time
The clock is wrong,
the television too complicated to use
The air lies thick with silence
Finally no monitors
Somewhere down the corridor the pad of soft slippers
Visitors come here less often
one by one
or to speak of medical matters

Eyes flickering, his knees shift
He hears the sound of light,
warm memories
of cycling in the hills
as she speaks of other times.
"Remember the lighthouse on south stack,"
she says,
"and the summer there was snow in June
right before the heatwave."
At once a laughing child, he chuckles,
and in tangled words and spittle
tells an incoherent tale
filled with joy.
She laughs with him and helps to wipe
his white bristled chin.

Beyond the high window
leaves turn brown,
twisting in the chill wind.
The gibbous moon flickers
behind torn clouds.

In a while she must kiss him
and go home to solitary toast with tea
leaving him to drift amongst kind hands
completing competent tasks
around his bed