It was the colour of ruby carnations
spiralling up the plastic tube
as it left my body, but I suppose
all I could see were dollar signs
and the quickfix takeaway food
I would buy with those bloodied coins.
I was hungry, you understand.
The needle was deep in my arm
in a way that was comforting,
something about that warm flow
against both sides of my skin at once.
The needle was there, and the nurse
was not, but she would be back with
her rough hands, and dirty white-moon nails.
There were to-ings and fro-ings about,
other needles in other arms, and
(I cannot tell you how often I have
relived, revived, remembered these moments)
somewhere amongst them, someone
who surely felt a little faint? A little
weak at the knees with disease?
But the needle was deep in my arm
sucking like a thirsty leech so that
when I left I would have been lighter
but for the bloodied coins in my pocket.
So now, lying on this seedy mattress,
staring at stars in the ceiling, I rekindle
the touch of those rough nurse hands,
and try not to think about voracious
virus fighter planes cruising under my skin,
and the weakness in my limbs and lungs,
the dreary dead weights behind my eyes.