The Man in Room Fourteen
In one crucial respect,
is like everyone else.
He’s a working diagnosis
about whom we know
both far too much
and nothing like enough
The man in room fourteen
spends twenty four hours either
going to the toilet
or not going at all;
is never a happy medium
for happy mediums don’t inhabit
rooms like room fourteen
His wife brings him
a small brown Teddy bear
made (naturally) in China,
which he immediately names
for the Minister For Finance.
The man in room fourteen likely has
somewhere between
two years
and a matter of months.
While other possibilities stalk
elite laboratories;
and the walled gardens of certain
medical imaginations;
the man in room fourteen
must now negotiate alone
and from a position of weakness
the narrow track through the dark
that’s his only way back away from
the jaws he can hear salivating below him.
