The Accident

I pick up the phone.
Words move across the kitchen in slow motion,
while a solitary knife continues to slice an onion.
I consider how best to collect the letters scattered on the kitchen floor.

The Accident 2

Here is a list of everyday objects;
Bicycle, race number, motorcycle, ambulance, emergency room, syringe, oxygen, x-rays, stretcher and revolving doors at the end of the corridor, framed by light, that licks the glass and twinkles through smudged finger prints.
Here is a list of everyday people;
Cyclists, race commentator, motorbike rider, policeman, witnesses, ambulance driver, nurse, x-ray operator, doctors and lots more nurses passing through revolving doors, watched by visitors, straining to see the light on their faces.

The Accident 3

A thud,
Caught in a hot summer afternoon,
That stops at two twenty nine pm.

There you are on a stretcher asking for a list of bones in alphabetical order.
But the doctor is not impressed by your Englishness, nor your knowledge of orthopaedics.
And still your bike spins like a multitude of steel pins.

The Accident 4

The visitors and their messages crowd the waiting room,
choke the long corridors to your bed of steel,
reading their newspapers, until a word like 'forever',
reminds them why they need to keep their visits short.

At home the visitors cannot sleep, they clutch their stomachs,
with the click click click of the morphine switch.
But I sleep and dream of your beef tomatoes,
planted in pots alongside lemon trees and bougainvillea,

and watch you cut the tender, swollen fruit,
that tumbles gently towards your open palm.