Eighty-Eight

Music: Fugue in C# minor
By Dimitri Shostakovich. Sequenced by J. Marques .

Alpha List Number Poems Poems About Health   Contents Home Copyright by Nicholas Gordon

Eighty-eight spends much of life in bed, Interred beyond her time in drugs and pain. Grateful only for the gift of sleep, Having lost the will to laugh or weep, The shrunken doll repeats just one refrain, Yearning for the comforts of the dead.   Even so, the trail of pills has led Into a world she grapples with in vain, Grasping for a grace she cannot keep, Harsh and vivid hauntings of the brain That make of life a stew of joy and dread.