Have you used Viagra in the past 24 hours
the paramedic asks slightly embarrassed
I answer No but is there a box
for I wish I had a reason to you can tick
while something won’t dissolve
under my tongue if death comes here
more than an hour to the nearest hospital
strapped down how foreign the paisley gums
out the back in the mist are every bump
on the logger’s track a cry from
a pulping tree I have no risk factors
the driver’s losing traction stopping
for another reading but it’s all good
then just take this in case anyway
everyone in the emergency department
is pregnant except for Andrew
I answer the same questions every time
they take blood and a reading and x ray
he tells me in Vietnam his uncle
gave him a smoke when he was four
I ask for his uncle’s number for a word
our joke of me dealing with a bad relative
chuckles around Mario who’s a gondolier
with a speedy trolley strokes a poleless skill
between the traffic of cubicles as he lands
me back with Paula and Nina who pull
the patches off we laugh about my flokati
chest never looking the same again
Dr Van tells me I’ve got a real good heart
there waiting for the all clear all I can think about
is the birth of my children how love tastes
like the bubbles in honeycomb and will my hand
ever slowly take a cast of your hip again
First published The Poet’s Republic Number 7 May 2019
Scotland’s No 1 Internationalist Poetry Magazine
‘Unstill Mosaics – The Book of Love, Loss, and Longing’ 2019.
James Walton Poetry 
This poem finds you in your usual good form, Jim! I had a particular chuckle at the Viagra comment!
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Thanks Kevin. I’m glad I survived to tell the tale.
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Hello James. Where do you find the ‘selection criterea’ ? Virginia
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Lovely to hear from you Virginia. I guess surviving is the test of the criteria!
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Well, i have survived quite a bit. this one doesn’t mention near death, but it certainly was (rather changes your perpective on everything else).
Open Heart
What a great idea
I thought
before I could think clearly,
as they stuck
a transparent bandage-patch
over one of the holes
dotting my chest.
A window so they can
check on the heart
and watch
its mechanical valve
ticking away
Following the beliefs
of an ancient philosopher
Tristram Shandy declared
that a window on the heart
would show at once
the character
the sympathy, humanity
and moral rectitude
of the heart’s owner
None could be deceived
The heart would show
the truth, openly
What a stupid idea
I thought
when I could think clearly again –
who can see through flesh
however marred
however split and zippered up again?
But the moment’s conviction
remained, because
the literary allusion sticks
like a bandage –
and because
moral rectitude
is in very short supply
Virginia Lowe
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Very, very good.
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