How Many Trips Around the Sun?
A poem by Jayne, a Salford carer
It’s been a thousand days
since you got sick
How many thousand Myeloma cells?
ate your bones and marrow?
How high would you score your pain today,
Mr Kelly?
How many millies in twenty-five infusions?
How many stitches have I made, waiting?
How many pills we’ve counted
of chemo, Dex and Len (a jazz band)
into little boxes, our new normal.
and tickets for Hope’s car park?
Where DID I put that ticket?
Haematology, gastroenterology, endoscopy,
cardiology, dermatology,
pharmacy, theatre, physiology
and masks! How many masks?
Three surgeries, one bout of ileus,
five trips to A & E, five emergency admissions,
one Aspen brace, one stick,
Thousands of them,
but one you, one me.
At night the curtains stay open.
The windows are to life outside
In spring, the rooftop courtship
of the pigeons, rock and wood
Goldfinches fly in garlands
and line the 6G wires, skittish guardians,
while starling drop like iridescent bombs.
In summer, bats display their acrobatics
while our lights make insect Maccy D’s.
In autumn, winds blow fiercely and
Mavis Rustle’s leaves shimmer gold,
before losing their grip
and falling, right back down to earth.
Magpies squabble in the gutters
and days shorten
Windows start to reflect us
I’m cold. Are you cold?
Maybe time to draw the curtains.
