From a Hospital Bed

If I push you away,
do not think that I reject your love,
or your being seen to love.
What I resist is your, anyone’s, power
to make me another,
at the moment, someone shown to be in need,
who must display
the allegory of suffering.
Since, in my hurting, I hurt you,
forgive me.
This is all I have left, my body,
its control or lack of it.
Do not ask me to surrender it.

My Mother Briefs a Friend on the Telephone About
an Acquaintance Who Has Returned from a Stay in
Halifax Hospital

She was down in Sydney…
er…Camp Hill…
for her kidney.

Fraser Sutherland is a poet, editor, and lexicographer who has published 17 books, most recently the poetry collection Bad Habits. He lives and works in Toronto.