don’t be long in a children’s cancer ward

by C. J. Vallis 

Smiling fox hangs from the cot rail,
draw his tail down and lullaby
sings guten abend, gute nacht
for giving
a whirly gurney, an electropop infusion
of ultrasound, drip drip chemical cocktail
pumps blink warning lights
some party
 
your spinal tap seeps time, you are
seventeen seventy cytotoxic and
dah dee dah dah dee dah
go to sleep
 
days be long you under stand with stand
Summer left her breath her ward bed
her substance absorbed with paper towel
in patient out anyway how long is day
memory? chance or strategy?
 
these cards stacked 52 thick and counting
turning and matching days (not diamonds)
in grown toe nails and wigs
the smell of glands, metal
 
can sir sleep?
doctor nurse bitte
patterns to sense, recall wild ear
fire drum bird words
what colour to hold?
be hold, lulled by
fox paw, your claw marks
in velvet liver.

C. J. Vallis is a writer and educator on Wangal land. She won the 2019 UTS Writing Anthology prize. Her flash fiction was runner-up in the Byron Writers 2019 competition, and she has been longlisted for the Joanne Burns and Microflix Writing Awards. She's hoping to publish a novel soon.