Summer in the San' 1956

From a bed in the corner
of a small cubicle room
I watched summer slowly unfold,
through tall French windows
I saw the flowers bloom
with eyes prematurely grown old

A sward of green grass
and poplars swaying,
surveyed from a rumpled bed
the tedious rhythm of life was set
by a time-tabled day ahead

Ennui and impatience,
gathered apace
as each hour unhurriedly passed.
Compulsory resting
my wretchedness amassed
my resentment gradually cresting

Such was the misery
of that summer of fifty six,
confined in bed bound
isolation.

Tubercular!

God what an awful fix
for a prepubescent girl
almost in memoriam ....

Often I'd lie anguished
on fevered nights
imagining my life
would end prematurely,
coughing up my ragged childish lights.
A cold dark grave
could not be meant for me... surely?

When lightening stepped down
from a black velvet sky
tearing the soft warm flesh of the night,
I thought, what drama if tonight by chance I should die,
hang on... hang on... 'til its light.

Months, languishing
a rump full of Streptomycin
breathing fresh air by the lungs full,
that summer was frustrating,
lost to me, but enticing
my impatience
to feel the suns magic pull.

That summer's slow passage
saw my spirits return
with autumn's fiery days I lusted for home;
at last the heat of fever
ceased to burn,
and an embryonic energy
heralded a life yet to come.