The trolley rolls under strip-lights

blazing into one unfolded wing. The nurse

holds my hand;I've asked her to see me through.

I give way to anesthetic on the second count.

I've made my pact. Wake to blinds caustic at the window.

Somehow it is morning, around me

at the foot of the bed, white coats and clipboards.

I have a whole new blood.

I feel it, flushing the old water of my bones.

No one asks what I saw.

The long black rectangle of nothing –

less than, more than that. If you filled a room with tar

and let it set then set it wheeling into space

until it comes to rest,

a solid mass hanging in the emptiness

you'd have it. You cannot fear it.

The hospital faces know: this is life; this is death.

Now the scar is a line pulled tight above my pubis.

It is past midnight, the temperature below zero

when frost makes stones of air,

craquelure of grass. I lean from the window

as owls sing cages for my breath.

More and more these days time folds around me

like a moth settling on glass.