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.