I know she is worried sick
Yesterday was the first time
In fifteen years
That she didn’t snore as soon as her head
Hit this nailed coffin that we call our bed
I was awake too, waiting for my cue
So I could slowly, silently get up
And slide like a ghost still unaccustomed
To the Ether world
Towards a medical cabinet
Once stinking of gin
Now decorated with little white satchels of moisty
Nothingness
Their backs and fronts seriously type-faced
With titles and declarations
Which allude to contemporary Messiahs
Suddenly arriving to comfort a need
That needn’t be there in the first place
Like that worried look on her face
Borne out of stretched muscles
Violently twitching into a spasm
That is constantly being pushed out
Wildly open, like a mountainside chasm
I would have kissed her goodnight
If I didn’t already feel that my head
Would give way at any minute
Making it true, revealing
Without coyness or humour
That what was once thought
As the stresses of a workplace
Frantically sterile to be worth the time invested
Putting a strain on my momentary reign
By knowledge of it being
Not anymore a rumour
But in reality, a malignant tumor