ENDS AND ENDS.

A BOY VISITS HIS DRUG ADDICT GIRL FRIEND IN A MENTAL HOSPITAL IN 1967

Nima sits
on the grass
just outside
the mental
hospital

I’m with her
in a chair
watching her
finger roll
a thin smoke

her nightgown
has flowers
bright yellow
with green leaves

what's it like?
I ask her

what's what like?
she replies

this madhouse
hospital
and the staff?

she lights up
the thin smoke
and inhales

could be worse
she mutters
exhaling
drug addicts
come here now
on this wing

I see her
empty eyes
the pale skin
random spots
on her chin

not had sex
for so long
I’m almost
virginal
she tells me

how are you
in yourself?

I don't know
kind of numb
want a fix
want some sex

she looks down
at the grass

how are you?
she asks me

surviving
as one does
playing jazz
drinking booze
missing you
I reply

miss you too

she's silent
keeps smoking
a thin gap
appears in
her nightgown
near her thigh
glimpse of skin

that last sex
in London
was quite good
she mutters

I recall
her laying
on a bed
birth naked
in that small
hotel room
her garden
of Eden
hot waiting

where's it end?
I ask her

I don't know
she utters
in some room
all alone
or in one
of London’s
dark gutters.