She read this somewhere.
She thinks about it now
while she watches his restless sleep,
his hand tensed as if gripping hers
tight, outside the closed door
to her parents’ living room,
his lips moving
as if to the words
of their song that summer,
a corner of his mouth moist
as if from the last drops of Sangria
shared on the hotel terrace,
his hair wild, like it was
on the promenade last November
when the salt wind lashed.
She turns her eyes to the tubes
that snake from his body,
hears the beeps and thrums,
pictures him, an old time diver
lowered into the depths,
through kelp, scatters of small fry,
into a kaleidoscopic burst
of colour, lighting the murk,
the welcoming Host.
Nigel King lives in Almondbury, Huddersfield. His poems have been published recently in The High Window, Poetry Salzburg Review and Three Drops From A Cauldron. His first collection, What I Love About Daleks, was published by Calder Valley Poetry in 2017.