Never Forget

By Atar Hadari

She was a staff nurse, great thighs
barrelling round the corridor with chains of trolleys
stacked to the port holes with pills
potions, ointments for the gout, charts stuffed with magic-

once in the operating theatre
when they brought in a dead father,
well, almost dead,
in a Hawaiian shirt blessed with flowers

streaming, his hands all wet with papaya juice
(he was stabbed, in a restaurant)
he opened his eyes and looked straight at her
"My name is Pablo Chanto," he said 

then he closed his eyes and she could hear,
as they opened his chest
and tried to get his breath back,
fishes leaving the sunken reef

opening the carafes of their throats
and swallowing wine out of the reeds
like bubbles reaching hands
in streams out of his mouth

at the bottom of the ocean in a galleon,
fish swimming in streams out of his chest
and the flowers on the gurney
in his shirt, flowers soaked and billowing 

with red all whisper as she reaches 
in his chest to scoop the fishes out,
"You must go home and write this down
You must never forget the colour on the instruments."

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Written Word ‘Heart’ poems