Yesterday's News

They said I'd be back
on my bike in no time
after the knee operation,
but all I could see was a grey haze
stretched out over the horizon
like a Scottish moor or possibly
a giant spider's web, blocking
a future that no longer
included life as I knew it.

You're just nervous, they said,
but who can be nervous about
an eighth inch of cartledge
when you've had your appendix
taken , near bursting, after
a midnight vomit-hurling vault
to Emergency, or your uterus
ripped out of your body
and thrown into the bin
for discarded body parts.

I've never been back on my bike,
never returned to the old life.
Sometimes we sense these things,
know when the future lies waiting
with its sword drawn or perhaps
a soft fog to lull us, but nobody
wants the headlines ahead of time.
Best to wait till they're yesterday's news,
lining our garbage pails, and soft rains
bring only the good dreams again.




Pris Campbell
 ©2006


Accepted for MEAT, 
edited by S.A. Griffin, 2006



Art: Nirvana by Toorop




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