Hospital Visit

i thread my car through unforgiving streets
where manners are places people live
on through the sodium haze
to the place where she is
half drugged, half asleep

and the sign clipped to the foot of her bed reads
"she does not eat meat.."

slipping ghost-like through disinfected corridors
swing doors and over polished floors
she lays there ashen absurd
in a nightie supplied by the NHS
.........bless