pale horse rider, (content) Options

[Guest_sampo_*]

(apology to marcus edward man snr.)


anti-septic atmosphere
infused into the stagnance
of sun dead hallways -

my footsteps forced forward.

room 103

stagnance goes bleep
amid nests of tubes, weighs
down the scaffold beds
with curtain walls, then falls
out a dim window
onto the sidewalk.

bed 4

i take the chair beside a white
mound with bones beneath,
listening to the rattle of his up,
down chest,

then shuffle car magazines
until he wakes.

morning.
morning, son... glad you came.
me too.
where's your mother?
she's sick.
damn good cover.

[insert forced laughter.]

well, i haven't tasted anything in months, you know?
yeah, i believe it.
then, why don't you help your old man out to the balcony?
so you can smoke?
so i can smoke.
you know...


(marcus, this is dr. lokukatagoda.
good morning, dr... um, how's my father?
well, we blah, metastasis, blah, blah...
done everything we can.
done?)


... okay.
that's a good kid, man even.
the fuck i am,

where's the bathroom?
out and left.
i'll be back

in a sec.


escape down the metal shaft, winded
by shame, knots i need to cough out.

past old men in white dresses,
umbilicaled to machine, being wheeled round
and round fluorescent linoleum.

across the road -
o'malleys pub.
to a drowsy barkeep;

bourbon and coke,
deck of marlboro.


embedded in a garden of ashtrays,
watching the ten storey tombstone
lean over a flatlined horizon,

windglass in the eye waters.

i must go back,
i must go.

[Kay]

Andrew,

I'm not sure if you are still revising this but for some reason this right here:

in a sec.

I wondered if

simply saying "shortly" would work better.

A small nit.