A Visitation at St. Vincent’s
Robert Gibbons
He lay there like a blank piece of paper
sans line, sans margin, sans form,
the cold, starched room with disinfected floors
reminded me of an open heart surgery
a moment for Cather to bleed on this page
it was not until Auden entered the room
with an apothecary of words it warmed up- it reddened
the asylum in my head continued to fluctuate
like those monitors overhead as I began to
coiling myself within myself; doctors and nurses
were like drug-carrying cartel, this poem
was just one way, one band aid, one sedative,
one way to kill this pain, one way to rid this doubt,
one way to let go of those drawn curtain, those
disinfectant floors, one more beat, one more murmur,
one more palpitation, if only I had a word transfusion,
I could find my way out, one way out of this labyrinth
word association, one way out of this needle in Billie’s arm,
out of Wright’s blues, one way out of this
general hospital.
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