In Emergency

Be this evil, 

it seems to say, 

letters and parts of letters 

out of view around the sides 

or concealed in the vertical folds. 

It's a long, suspended bag 

for hospital waste – 

white, with black writing.

What it really says is, 

Do not fill 

above this level.

Propped on my high cot,

cables attached to various bits

of my white-gowned body,

the other ends to a high screen

that beeps intermittently

and sometimes shrieks,

I contemplate evil

and waste

and what happens when 

you fill a receptacle

too full.

Obvious analogy: what 

we do to our planet.

But tonight I am cared for,

made comfortable.

I don’t want to think

serious thoughts. I want

to pretend to be old –

this old woman I look like –

to keep living in the short-term;

to forget the ageless awareness

of our larger doom.


PS Yes it is autobiographical, and the experience recent – but it turned out I had nothing seriously wrong.