Dilation Diary
On opening up and letting someone in
Through a slit in the wall, Brighton beach enters and leaves and leaves again. Glint of a gull’s beak in the crude, poking sun. My surgeon is charming; nurses flock Around where he scraped, scraped, scraped A cove possibly too deep Or too shallow. I ignore the discharge; this is my bed. I am a clam-like girl: nervous, attached. My own father Is a stranger here. This passage was never meant to open – Until it was. What miracle, I heard the doctor say, That nature hasn’t closed it off! I am at war with nature; I force it out like a fascist’s fat thumb; I fill up with plastic. I am ready for my visitor now. He stands Besides me, smiles while I wilt. There is nothing here except the crevice itself, I am frail and old and lying on the edge. His handsome mouth And fat hand and fat hand smothers Everything and it hurts how much of him I let inside