In The Stepping Down Ward, Brixton, Clinical Waste Bins Holding Our Doors Open
Throughout the night, a figure wearing
A Klu Klux Klan costume is staring
Out from the sick bay opposite mine,
And I risk undoing my scar line
With anything more than muted sobs.
The nurses come in to do their obs,
Brush against my nasogastric tube,
Make me tractable, with the white cube
Of his hood, bed and pillows behind;
But then, like the Kahins who divined
In their utterances of foresight,
I must not cry loudly in the night.
