Visiting

[HenryBones]

Visiting

Every day between the hours of six
and nine, the Royal Victoria's
east wing, five rows up and four along,
its squares of blue and yellow light

falling into line like a squad
of soldiers marching out
to troop the colour, each rigid
measure part of that post-war mania

for routine and order. Magnolia
walls, paper nighties and the faint hint
of formaldehyde, her heart monitor's
low hum glazing over the silence

in the same way that the flash
of a fifty-watt bulb had glazed over
the lace dress and porcelain skin
she had worn to their wedding,

faces turned towards the camera in hope
more than expectation. A quick grasp
of her hand and peck of her cheek
and then he was gone again

for another day, the ward
rolling up behind him like that length
of track he used to ride through Conmnemara
and down to her small patch of coast, the swerve

of the lines sparkling in the night
time air like a handful of scattered
stars, like her lily-white throat and shoulders
as they slipped back into the velvet dark.

[Jackie]

Your opening captured me, Henry. It's lush with images. After a few reads I stopped looking for sentences in the poem and let the listed events play themselves out.

You build a tense wariness of light throughout, and finally relieve it in the last line. Very effective, I thought.

I think you refer to a historical setting that I'm not familiar with (are we in Montreal? Ireland? When?) but I enjoyed it very much nonetheless.

Jackie

[cynwulf]

scene and situation conveyed very movingly by the clarity of structure, imagery and word choice. liked the synaesthesia between v3 and 4.
regards,c.

[ray miller]

I like it a lot. I'd like it even better if it started at Magnolia....
Mostly because I don't find the analogies in the first two stanzas particularly convincing or redolent of that post-war mania for routine and order. Hospitals, buildings, they're just like that aren't they?
You've an errant m in Connemara.