Stanley Pelter
Claypole, Lincolnshire, England

from Somewhere to Elsewhere to Nowhere

How do you feel?
                                                                                     Reasonable
(With Consultant for extended ½ hour).

anxious split image
transforms sun-filled afternoon
limp ash still leafless

Factual prognosis is dire. "You are a high-risk patient. Gall bladder is welded to scar issue of an ancient operation. That runs-from-top-to-bottom-scar is very old-fashioned. Detaching will spout lots of blood. What with your heart doing what it would be better if it didn't, and not doing that so good, it could prove a hazardous obstacle."

                                                                   Are you saying I should perhaps not . . . ?

"I haven't finished talking! I aim to remove your nodule-enhanced adrenal gland. Means pushing stomach and other bits aside. Because of how you were plumbed all those years ago I will need to remove your spleen to get to where I have to be. Your lack of an immune system will be serviced by antibiotics." I am already on 9 pills a day.

Looks through his window at a closer distance.

"Add in your age you are, as I say, a very high-risk patient".

Pick up on that new word 'very'.

walk from hospital
beyond st pauls cathedral
head in cleaned up thames