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John West
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- Putting
People to Bed
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- Puddling around in the pad between Mr Johnson’s legs
- I see as if for the first time in twenty years
- what it is I do, cleaning the coated scrotum,
- watching the bristles on his legs,
- the random pattern of the bruises on his skin, my eyes catch
sights
- and my ears sweep sounds and my nose sponges up smells;
- his frailty, his humility, his sorrow.
-
- They lean towards me so I can peel away their clothes,
- fibres oozing with the sweat of their afternoons;
- I wipe their faces, wash teeth; they forget
- between the two ticks of a clock but I remind them
- that this is their bed, tell them that they live here now,
- that I am a person in this house,
- that they will never go to their own home now.
-
- I feel their warmth through pyjamas, nighties,
- touch the wet of mouths as I feed in pills;
- I see men who wander corridors, line at doors
- waiting for a bus or train to go home,
- to go out to their job or the pub,
- I hear them wondering about their children,
- I hear women asking Who can stop that baby crying?
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- I taught at school for a year then midnight flitted, next
- a factory, then a lab assistant’s job, then this,
- meeting these people, feeding and showering them,
- putting them to bed, people with pockets filled
- with the marble chips of dreams, the bluestone chunks of age,
- dry sticks jammed into earth while my life spreads,
- a paddock blowing green.
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