Boxing Day

You point your beams at me
Your faint fingers quiver with
Blue colour, tiny sun 
So cold and faraway 
I feel no heat from you -
Pale and old example of yourself.

I watch you through the glass, 
You flicker as a crash of crockery
Clatters the quiet, clashes with
The scream of a door - 
Echoes bounce down the corridor.

This early hour is cold, 
Thought can be heard 
And there is movement everywhere except 
In this room, where the air is still
And silence hovers like a lover

Near the bed. The rasp of breath
Is muffled, such labour to suck 
Then blow - effort rattles her throat like
A pebble rattling a tin can. So
Frail a sound to reach the far wall

In this box of cold, cream stone.
Outside in the corridor the
White coats flap, flipping past they
Chuckle, young, chat about the party
And the money they have blown

And with the opening door and 
The gentle push of air, the balloons above
The bed, bob, cast flippant shadows -
Dashes of unlikely colour 
Contrast the white; meanwhile in the

Waiting Room another ashtray fills with
Ash and butts, gloom motes the air like dust
As they sit beneath a neon glare,
Chat and wait, pass the time 
As taxis roll by outside in the rain 

And police cars patrol - ready
For the rowdies
On Boxing Day.

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