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Realisation
Approaches deliberately
faceless, androgynous
as death’s dark angel
in silhouette;
audible as footsteps
on buffed green linoleum,
in corridors lavish with ammonia
and service station carnation.
Administers a medicine
I am compelled to swallow;
no saccharine sweetener,
or milky kindness,
I take it strong and black.
It drips, echoes within
scalds, brims over
tastes like petrol in my mouth.
It scratches its truth, with a rusty nail
on the tissues of my heart.
© Caroline Imperatori
This poem is to be published in the 2003 edition of The National Poetry Anthology (UnitedPress)
Image from a sketch by Giacometti