Morphine
A nurse squirted morphine into my mouth.
Hospital white. Light punches holes in the horizon.
"Shoulder surgery is quite painful I think":
the anaesthetist, before they wheeled me in.
Pills in a little plastic cup.
They look like an offering of Smarties.
The brown ones are particularly potent.
London is outside, in the vacant night.
Wraiths in green smocks sometimes rise
and shuffle to the loo.
I don’t know if I’m half-asleep or half-awake.
The ward’s quiet traffic across fading hours.
The pain is consistent as a rock formation.
I must have made some kind of moaning sound,
some ghost gesture.
She is small, looks like she’s from the Philippines.
She has soft, kind eyes.
"Open wide!"
It still didn’t make any difference.
Published by Ben Preston
Ben Preston is a poet washed up in London’s Somers Town. He’s worked as a bartender, factory operative, diamond controller, dabbled in philosophy and dropped out of everything. He’s starting again. He’s using the skills he’s developed in creative writing to forge a new life and a new identity.
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Ben Preston 