The Watcher

A caregiver of a terminally ill patient forcefully delegates the responsibility to an cold and barely willing subject

 

The Watcher


Iron heavy handshake
Wrings healthy wrists,
Squeezes allegiance to
An unpurified princess
Committed to a bedpan throne.

A grudging delegator
Of the sentinel’s shift
Sends in a flinching fellow martyr,
Whose starched, proper sleeve
Might never cross the coverlet
to issue a delicate touch.

Eyes scooped hollow and blank as cardstock, quicken.
A rash-ravaged pelt crawls.
Bright, busy scarabs writhe
Beneath a pocked, fetid sheet.

On the bed table, a sardonic clock
Ticks cacophonous tocs and
Looms nightly, casting Day-Glo and gloom
Upon the curtained wall.

It tsk, tsk, tsks it’s betrayal by
Stealing the nervous glances of
A designated watcher,
Whose stilted gaze might never
Rest upon the gaping sockets of
A mirthless, malignant reminder
Of inevitable death.