Gently Crying 1940 Poem by Terry Collett

I wake up in a panic,
but it is still darkness
my blind eyes see,
having dreamed I saw
my garden at my house,
but then it dawns on me
that the house was bombed,
and as I feel for my legs,
I realize the stumps are there
and the legs gone.

I lie on the pillow
and stare into darkness,
listening to the sounds around:
voices, calls, bedpans
being used, footsteps,
wheelchair(needing oiling)
going by the bottom of my bed.

I smell disinfect and urine,
and perfume, and ointment.

Morning, Grace, a nurse says
to me on my right, how are
you this morning?

I dreamt I was in my garden
and saw the flowers
and the apple tree
and woke up to darkness
and depression, I say,
staring towards her voice,
trying to give an impression
I could see her.

Yes, that happens to those
who have seen before
they lost their sight,
the nurse says softly.

She lifts up my nightdress
and I feel her fingers
touch the bandages
on my stumps,
her fingers moving
over them.

They still hurt,
I say,
still painful, despite
the medication.

I know, Grace, they can
only take off the
edge of pain,
but they will get better
as time heals the wounds
and the stumps
seal up properly,
the nurse says.

Another nurse comes
on my left and says:
there was a jam factory
got bombed last night
and some of the girls
who worked there
got horribly burnt
by hot boiling sugar and jams.

Yes, I heard,
the nurse on my right says.

I lie and sink into
a deep hole of self-pity,
listening to the talking
as they unwrap my bandages
and finger the stumps.

As they touch me,
I think of Clive,
that night he first
made love to me,
his kisses, and him
lying between my thighs
and me sensing him
within me and the bed
moving beneath us
as if on a vast sea of pleasure
and we on a small craft
moving up and down
and him kissing my lips
and ear and head.

Now he is dead.

The nurses touch my stumps,
then clean them and wash them
and bandage them up again,
all the time talking around me
of the jam factory blast
and girls burnt
and some dying,
and I lie here
gently crying.