Adrift

Henceforth, weigh happiness by the distance
from the oxygen vent;
peace of mind by the reek of a phenyl floor.

Mouth agape, fallen mutely
into dull pain
on a blue-white low Fowler bed,
wires sprouting from her chest,
a sunburnt flower’s stem.
How utterly still she is now!

If one could wake her for a moment more
with purer breath and restore her 
to spit at mortality —
But heaven’s boat has sailed,
hull heavy, the last weight of the heart
upon the blinking monitor.

Adrift on the wheezing bed,
she is floating afar — without a word,
without making the faintest move.