Windows

May 20

By Chris Campbell

(My wife is a surgeon currently studying towards a PhD, at a hospital)

Flitter within shirts and skirts,
pick your uniform. I listen
under thick covers.
No lipstick, cross-legged in
front of a full-length mirror,
grab your lanyard,
to me a medal.
I steal glimpses within pillows.
Curtain holes like spotlights.
TV whispers;
coughing headlines. Porridge hangs off hobs;
bubbles, bowl clangs.
Our cat kneads. Birds congregate at the door.
You study, placate patients,
collect stats, prowl hospital wards,
bring home owls.
Spin webinars, working groups, panels;
eat dinner and life in tiny windows.
You long to treat,
we clap, circle routines,
weekends brim with data.
Ambulances fly in blue;
salute drivers,
pray for patients through square glass.
Bins borrowed, post returned, my
only
face-to-face chat with delivery drivers.
Yoga and sleep meditation, roll,
surrender bed for the loo, collect bedposts.
Feet like shot-puts, toss the cat into twilight,
tonight we’ll lie longer,
but there are crinkles,
whose alarm cries, why’s my pillow vertical?
Is everyone inside, or outside,
who’s working?
You burnt popcorn the other night;
bitter,
while still sweet, I liked it, you didn’t.
Burnt again next time, days apart,
maybe weeks, I saw remnants in the bin,
we ate bowls of it anyway.
TV turns on by itself,
stars tune in, morning waits; watching,
do patients,
are they home? Figures are figures
and they’re frequent, my watch ticks
so we left it outside the bedroom.
Sometimes I wear it, others I forget,
I don’t know if I forgot today. It’s powered by
movement, shall I purr on this sofa, like the cat, fixated,
or eyes buried, garden overgrown?
Is this space shrinking, does everyone
in loops
feel like it’s a loop, even those nursing others through?
Let’s wind watches – millions ticking.
Waves of silence break eardrums;
foams of thought, memories like shells.
Linen baskets spit; voices in creases,
odd socks, washes in windows.
Wrap up carers on black mornings,
with arms soft as scarves.
Calling my mum today, she’s had a jab,
so’s my dad,
you’ve had two, I like knowing that.
I have a tiny nephew, I’ll find him
at Easter, he’s not used to me holding him.
Come home, in the morning, or late,
we’ll laugh,
we’ve laughed more recently, at the strangeness of it.
Maybe there’s nothing else to do,
or you’ve just got funnier.
You have beautiful shirts and skirts.