Sick Bed

The bed with it's blankets
and it's lazy stare of wool
it's pomposity of pillows
and chill of sheet

and I am the old faring coal pan
blaze the dome that this bed
has become

my brown hide sweats
and the follicles prickle out
as if cactus were my family tree
and I curse all the pricks

the bed becomes juicy
territorials of orange peel and ocean

and my nurse, is commandeering
my own leaky boat
as her pirate's education
prescribes what custom I must consume

and what grumble I can gurn
and yes she has hot legs that smell of spice and alcohol

hospital gradient
and all I want is more waves
and hot drippings

condensation and the scaldings of hot water and nurses

and illuminated in my tiny mind that I am a drowned man

guggling down to the blackness of Davy Jones Locker

with a bottle or rum, and all those medicaments proffered for early twentieth century influenza

drinkwater, eatorange, supsoup

and yet may we work when we're weak