YISKA AND SNOW AND ME.

A YOUNG AMD AND GIRL IN A LOCKED HOSPITAL WARD IN 1971

Yiska wants to slit wrists

to shove handfuls of pills
down her throat

leap from the ledge
of the ward window

bang her head
against the door frame
until her head bleeds

I am not shocked
I have an underlining
admiration
of her dedication
to death of some sort

don't suppose
you have a razor blade?
she asks

no they don't allow
those in here  
I say
we have to use
the well used
electric one

she walks across
from window to the door
of the locked ward
I walk beside her

I'd mouth pills
if I could get any
she says

locked up
I add

she pauses
I could try hang myself
from the pipe in the bog
like you did
she says

but all cords or belts
are now confiscated
once in here
and the nurses watch you
like hawks

some look like hawks
she says

I notice her anxiety
it sits in her
like a possession
like a demon
has taken over her

don't the pills
they give work?

no
she says walking again
twice you tried that
she says
hanging in bogs
what is the thing
about bog hanging?

I don't know
the solitude of the place
no one there with you

I was just lucky
that old boy noticed
and called the nurse

lucky?
Yiska says

well that time
else I wouldn't be here
talking to you

or the second time attempt
she says

we stop by the window
and stare out
at the snow on the fields
and trees

kind of pure isn't it
I say

unlike me
she mutters
it's cold out there
fancy getting out
and lying in a ditch
and wait to die of cold

she shivers
her pale blue nightgown
moves
her unslippered feet
look innocent
as children

there's always ECT
I say

she looks at me
didn't work
just a fecking headache
afterwards
she says

me too
I say

she peers at the snow
I read somewhere
of German soldiers
freezing to death
in Russia during WW2
some standing up solid
she says
almost admiringly
but I’m locked in here
not out there

she puts her forehead
on the window pane

I can smell her perfume
musky but out of place
and a haunted look
on her young pale face.