Four straps over one shoulder: the usual

baggage, plus a blood pressure monitor.

At twenty minute intervals it beeps

and constricts, measuring my blood

as it struggles through tunnels.

                                       Hypertension:

a gift from my stressed ancestors.

I remember my Pop scraping every last skerrick

of wine from a foil cask with a metal ruler

and Nan’s salty treats – Lay’s Thins –

stashed on top of the fridge. Our hearts

and brains are prone to blowing up.

                        I’m trying to stay calm

but I’ve just climbed four flights

to my boyfriend’s apartment to discover

one of the keys I had cut is a dud.

It’s lunchtime and I need to pee.

The machine grips my arm like a Floatie

inflated by an overzealous parent

                                      with Olympian lungs.

Through the smudged vestibule window

I can see across town, where my friend Tamara

is currently dying. It’s a process: an unspooling

list of things she’ll never do again, grieved

in real time.

              Seemingly mundane milestones

like birthdays take on weight – she cried

to realise she wouldn’t reach my age:

thirty-eight. Talking about the future

feels like a faux pas, and attempting to relate

is met – quite rightly – with scorn.

The pain disrupts her sleep, denying her

even that escape into ignorance.

                                   When I leave her place

I feel guilty relief. But a livestream

in my mind plays in a browser window

where her sunken eyes connect with mine

and ask to be witnessed.

                              Standing outside

Steven’s locked front door, I picture all

the boring things I would do in there:

make tea, defrost bread, open my laptop

under the pretext of poetry or work

only to scroll news sites and social media

and get increasingly depressed.

                                           I leave my bags

and go back to the street: a frigid wind tunnel

of weekday efficiency. Pensioners in masks

mill outside the medical centre.

Office workers queue for chicken rolls.

I sit beneath the last remaining red leaves

of a Japanese maple, trying to resist the pub.

                             A month later I’ll buy a Fitbit

and my blood pressure will go down.

At Tamara’s bedside I’ll check my step count

while neighbours on nearby balconies

take pictures of the setting sun.