They've put him in his lad's old room,

model planes on threads, wardrobe piled

with jigsaws, games no longer played.

It overlooks the factory that churns out

pharmaceuticals and smells

of chicken shit on days they steam-blast

fermentation units clean. He's lying on the bed

in track-suit bottoms, like the ones I wear

about the house, looks trimmer, younger,

a parody of fitness. Only the pasty face,

its waxiness of bland Victorian dolls,

the balsa-boniness of arms and legs

give the game away. Instead of neighbourly

evasive chat, I listen warily

to nightmare tales of hospital cackhandedness,

misplaced files, hours in restless corridors,

intrusive probes and claustrophobic scans,

the brutal relief of knowing now the worst.