Poetry

Paradox

Philippa Martyr

 

Rain and dark roads brew a black-tea storm:

Waiting—waiting—you do not arrive—

My teacup-storm erupts—your phone unanswered—

Full-scale panic—flashing lights—

Tight-faced doctor—“he was in no pain”—

And always waiting; how can silence

Be so loud? How can absence be so busy?

Nurses rush, police make notes, priest rolls up stole,

And like the cyclone’s Cyclops eye I stand stock still:

An open grave flies past me, and then what?

 

Then you arrived; you’d stopped to buy a cake.

Relief is such a transient thing. Then anger roars:

“How dare you survive, when I have grieved for you!”