Woke

in a hospital bed
a glowing white room

a nurse checks my chart

by my covered feet 
This wasn’t where I was before

I didn’t know where that was, but

this wasn’t it
“Am I dead?” I ask her with

a sudden flash of insight

I don’t even say hello first

The nurse scribbles something

briskly clips the chart and

looks at me. “Yes.”

She strode away.
“But who am I?” I asked the next nurse

“What am I doing in this bed?

What do I look like?”

“Would you like a mirror?”

“Am I a man?”

“I won’t offer again.”

I looked in the mirror

I looked ordinary

a relief

“As to why you’re in bed, why don’t you get up then?”
It wasn’t

a corridor or a hospital

(What was a corridor?

What was a hospital?)

I looked back at the bed

If I leave

I’ll never find my way back

I’ll lose every memory

all my words

like memory, my, words
Maybe find my mother?

But her job is done. She won’t

remember me by now

Who was she?
Oh bother

It’s not sad

it’s not even free

It just

is