When you fell out with the hospice
I promised I’d nurse you at home.
Twice a day I dressed the weeping
cheesy smelling wounds on your chest.
You were usually comatose when I lay
beside you in our urine-damp bed but
the morphine wasn’t strong enough
for the overdose you asked for.
I held Max’s collar so he couldn’t bump
the doctor when he gave you an injection
to end your spasms.
Next morning I washed our mattress
and left it to dry in the sunshine.
Jack Perkins August 2002
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