Make a fist for me, she says.
Now, push your heel against my hand.
Now pull my fingers towards you
How is it I forgot this
when I remembered the words,
Do you know where you are?
She tells me it’s so she can compare.
Afterwards. I had not thought,
really thought of afterwards
only of an end to the pain,
the way the ward is blurred,
the endless, endless nausea.
So matter of fact. Afterwards.
It isn’t logical but I want to say
My brain is a long way from my feet.
Carole Bromley lives in York where she is the Poetry Society’s Stanza rep. She has three collections with Smith/Doorstop, A Guided Tour of the Ice House, The Stonegate Devil and Blast Off! (for children aged 7-10). Carole runs poetry surgeries and recently became an Arvon tutor. This poem is about her experience of brain surgery earlier this year.