James Ackhurst: ‘Firework Night in the Hospital’ and ‘Keepsake’

Firework Night in the Hospital

Down at the end of the surgical ward
a crowd is gathering for the show.
For once, something’s more interesting
than puzzles or the newspaper,
something that draws us from our rooms,
where watchful screens still flicker, wanly.
Chairs are turned round carefully
to face the glass end of the hall.
It’s Fawkes Night in the hospital,
and these, the best seats in the house.

This floor-to-ceiling window marks
the end-point of my daily quest.
Each day I rally from my rest
and, at the nurses’ urging, trek
along the whitewahsed corridor
to where a single, sharp incision
has detached the clinical
from the everyday. And reattached:
so that we gather here to view
familiar fireworks, alien rites.

The fireworks look so small from here
it’s like some dwarf artillery
is weakly challenging the stars
with shells stuffed with confetti; yet
they bring with them a quiet wonder,
and we watch with silent joy,
they way you watch a tiny fire
on winter evenings when the light has died.
Though here, we’re on the other side
of some division, separated.

It’s not that we aren’t taking part –
I’ve never seen such reverent witness
to the singeing of the sky.
Insistently we observe these rites –
few, persecuted celebrants –
in parallel, not parody.
Despite this, or because of it,
something has distanced them from us,
enabled, we alone, to cull
the mute bravura of this festival.

For, dampened though the explosions are
by distance and linoleum,
their elvish flares are not snuffed out –
but brought to a new focus by
the hallway’s off-white telescope,
warmth’s tiny but effective dose
reduced to salving purity:
down at the end of the surgical ward,
unlisted access-point to gladness.

James Ackhurst

Keepsake

The surgeon asked
“Do you want the organ
once cut out?”

I said to him
“What would I do
with a dead organ?”

The surgeon laughed.
“I’ll chuck it out.”

But the nurse said
“Some of us eat it.
Some bury it in
the garden so
a tree will grow.
Some keep it as
a keepsake of
themselves, as part
of them that died.”

I said to her
“Next time, perhaps.
This organ’s not
important to me.
Give me my stomach
I will eat it.
Give me my bowels
I will bury them
in the garden
so that roots
grow down like fingers
taking hold
upon the darkness.
Give me my heart
so I can keep it
as a keepsake
of myself,
the only part
of me that lived.”

The surgeon chucked
my organ out,
since it was not
important to me.

Next time I went
to hospital
my stomach wasn’t
edible.
My bowels wouldn’t
grow down roots.
My heart could never
be a keepsake
of myself
because it was
the only part
of me that died.

James Ackhurst