Red To Black
Red to Black
Pink?
Pinkish!
The first flush of youth on the face at the gate.
Who? Pat Bouwer.
Then she’s maturer
And peach is the more appropriate word.
Whilst Red and Black are sep-a-rate.
A life-time of years
One of love not tears.
When out of the blue
There’s a transitional cell.
Bottom line? Please tell!
Cut to the chase.
Cut! Cut? Cut!
The knife excises the renal invader and its cancerous bower.
(Oh my Pat, it’s a fearful pun.)
One organ is gone
Still with poisons and rays they smack her in case.
Then hope flares up like a flame
But the crab bites deep
And begins to creep
Ever on, and silently on, like a veritable ghoul.
Peach fades to pallor and blanches like powder the beautiful face.
Now days are Black
And the western horizon is increasingly Red.
But Red inside her is read as life.
Something to grasp and hold very tight
Albeit only a straw.
Then in a twinkling Red switches to Black
And the dreaded Black blood gushes upward and out
Filling the dish she, yes she, holds alone in her hands.
A stainless-steel dish with a renal shape.
What bitter irony is that?
Worse still, she’s all alone;
A nurse without a nurse.
The ultimate curse.
What’s a vocation it’s only a ‘jop’
In any event the bell does n’t ring.
‘Bloken ?’ Oh yes it certainly is.
So move out, move out to where there’s love,
Care, and compassion but void of hope.
Now it’s gentle Black hands and Red epaulettes.
Calm are the days and gentle the nights
As warmly wrapped in her morphine cocoon
She wanders content with ghosts of her past.
And the Black is contained as she slips gently away
But there is time for a final whispered exchange
And a tender last brush of our lips
“I love you lots”,
“And I love you too.”
Then with a sigh and smile she is gone
As one of her own softly squeezes her hand.
Now Black is the hole that is left behind
And Red is the grief consuming my mind.
Copyright © Keith Beavon | Year Posted 2016
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