BED DODDY

Sleep, bed doddy, sleep, and dream
of disposable razors, soap, lying naked
for Nurse Tronco with her magnifier,
her powerful lights, her twitchfingers

Climb on here, enjoy needle moments
sleep, while electric scalpels part skin,
fat, and muscle, hissing steam rises
jigsaw teeth bite into pale white bone

Sleep, don't dream about jigsaw teeth,
blades, the split sternum drawn back
by an octopus, blood dripping from
hung plastic bags on metal stands

Wake, but don't try to speak,
luminous green cathode ray tubes
display tracks from your heart,
urine trickles silently into bottles  

Listen as beeping seconds tick off
time, using you as their clock.
Drain yourself slowly into plastic
tubes emerging horribly from skin

When the Foley catheter comes out
you will shout, but not as loudly
as you shouted when they dragged
the drain tubes from your thorax

 You never read warnings on packets
or if you had, it would be someone
else lying here, not you, naked
under sterile drapes, bed doddy.