Ill lay he long, upon this last return,

unvisited. The doctors put everything in the hospital

into reluctant Henry

and the nurses took it out & put it back,

smiling like fiends, with their eternal ‘we.’

Henry did a slow burn,

collapsing his dialogue to their white ears

& shiny on the flanges. Sanka he drank

until his memories blurred

& Valerie was coming, lower he sank

and lovely. Teddy on his handlebars

perched, her. One word he heard

insistent his broad shortcomings, then lay still.

That middle-sized wild man was ill.

A hospital is where it all has a use,

so is a makar … So is substantial God,

tuning in from abroad.