The Hospice Volunteer
 
I have returned to join a line of faces,
we’re printed onto plastic and clipped to a lanyard.
It’s a grip on an orange rope for my lone image toggling in the wind.
 
Through the unlocking doors I go,
far from our last shared space and her dignified suffering,
yet close enough to hear the lanyard tut-tutting on my buttoned-up fears.
 
The pass is waiting at the reader for my bravery to light up in green,
drawn from something at the centre that only she would understand,
in an unshared space where I begin, again.
 
Those hours of gratitude for a stranger’s dedication are saving up on this card.
It’s the face where I will hang my name until it whispers the words
to make my future more than a maybe.

Susan Wilson

 
If you have any thoughts on this poem, Susan Wilson would be pleased to hear them.