UNDERGROUND VOICES MAGAZINE/LINDA RAVENSWOOD


	UNDERGROUND VOICES: POETRY

LINDA RAVENSWOOD

Grandfather swim

The night nurse
came in
even that last time
to wake him.
She came
to push at his
rivers,
to lean on
his warm streams,
to constrict the flow
of his blood,
to chart him.
She came
with her trawler,
dragged a
silver footed
hypodermic
across the stillness
of his arms,
dipped her mercurial stick
into his tired mouth.
She asked
if he needed
anything.
He did not -
except for rest,
the thing that she
would not give him
before his long trip
home.