OH WHAT A CIRCUS !

OH WHAT A CIRCUS!

A motorway a speeding car where peer pressure

Placed me.  The journey a blur, was it far?

Was it fine?  Did it rain?   All I recall

Was the anger and pain as we sped 

To your final act, your hospital bed.

My brother and sisters spoke of our 'Dad'

Whoever that might be.   Their words allowed me

To fade as I strove to recall one selfless act made

for our sake.  One act of 'father', an epiphany.

All I remembered was your 'I' and your 'Me'.

A schadenfreude hope of bitter-edged gloom

Shattered by a room of hospital beds

Lit by inappropriate sunlight.   Counting heads, 

Hoping my sight would settle on the known

Features of the stranger you had become.

I passed the bed where you lay

But they knew you.  Reluctant steps brought me near,

In your eyes no pain, no fear.......and no love.

What did I expect?  Did I really believe 

We would connect?  Become father and child?

                                                                      2

Another blur, then I'm in the corridor

Staring at the walls and then at the floor,

Looking anywhere but inside my head

At a pathetic doll in a hospital bed.

Shrunk to reflect the truth.....the inner man.

One clear-cut memory finally comes to me.

A nurse, seeing my tears, offers sympathy.

The truth?  They were not tears of imminent loss,

But tears of rage cried by a child of human dross.

Would she have been shocked?   Called me heartless?

So....you're in there dying

And I'm out here crying.

What a circus.

© Susan E Birch  -  2010