syrup

Matron's needle draws out blood like nectar
sickly sweet dread hanging static in the sweaty moist air
as honeyed bones crack and splinter in fragile wait
heeding to decaying fingers tap-tap-tapping on your sternum
in anxious apprehension
as the white woman in the door frame announces,
“This way, please,
through the yellow door on the right,”
leading with a latex hand whilst clasping red bottled mortality in the other
and your little wet feet rot with every numb step slapping down the sterile corridor
reflecting on the gentle coying pools of warmed caramel
which trickle down your veins and congeal to a standstill
“Are you hungry?”
she detects a comely dalliance with crisp green apples
petrichor of the tongue
“Always, Ma'am,”
contempt of your stomach; swollen as dulcet ripening fruit
oozing curdled juices from your pores
suckling swarming flies
which fester in black dots before your  frothy eyelids
desultory vision behind a film of hospital sheets

Coarsely dormant limbs languish in a lethargic comatose
hanging limply, taped up with slippery tubes
clammy hands inert and dull to the ones at which you desperately clutch
craving flesh
But you repudiate fate's harbinger
who brings death to a simmer
trying to bubble over the floodgates
in vain
and its attempts fall from rooftops down, down, spilling sweetened camomile milk on the carpet
as insulin, rather, takes place
never minding today the callow bald heads in the next room over
your head has hair plastered damply to your scalp by your skin's sap
and you take your serum and lie it wearily down
soaking up the sticky sleep from the starched pillow
lulled by the (beep, beep) cadence of machines
which match the rise and fall of your quietened heart;
the thick syrupy breaths;
melting hardened clots from stale pink candy floss crystallised with saliva
to gurgling treacle once more
seeping through your body's loosened seams
flavouring black tea convalescent this night more to something worth tasting
hereafter green apples corrode to the earth
and in lieu of their locus
bloom peaches