Rik George writes

Hospital

Every evening they come to me, 
the woman I wed and the man I loved. 
They gather with lesser ghosts at twilight, 
fearful I’ll forget I knew them. 
They swing from the tube that enters my arm. 
They dance on the scope that watches my heart. 
When the lamps divide the glare from shadow, 
they skulk in the dark corners and scowl. 
They wait for my evening medication. 
They want to chatter in my dreams.
If this room had television, 
I’d turn it on before the twilight 
and drown my ghosts in seas of drivel, 
so I could sleep the night undisturbed.


Hospital -- Joe Ongie