White
 
Your eyes are closed. Your breathing ebbs
to a point where stillness is possible
even here, even as they move around you,
as pumps sigh and then re-inflate.
 
Your eyes are closed. White is the colour
of something you pull down the shutters
of your mind against. Your breathing ebbs.
Talk yourself through whatever retinue
 
of the mundane will get you through this:
the phonetic alphabet, registration numbers
of cars you’ve owned. Everyday things:
the banal, the barely-worth-mentioning,
 
things you’ll start to come back to, slowly.

Neil Fulwood

If you have any comments on this poem, Neil Fulwood would be pleased to hear from you.