February Night, Late, Lancaster

February Night, Late, Lancaster

I remember waking from a nightmare.
I lose track of the dream.
Something about a chase -- a shadow,
some dark form, blurred, chasing me.

Upon awakening:
lying on my side
in a shallow pool of blood,
formed where the weight of my body
had caused the bed to sag.

During the dream, the nightmare,
while fleeing from the shadow,
I had wrenched the I.V. from my arm.

(my blood was not clotting,
you see.
so when the tube was pulled
from my vein,
a dark line in my arm,
it was like a faucet.
my heart
pumping pumping pumping
blood pouring onto the sheets)

I woke
dizzy, tired, three in the morning.
I felt guilty.
I remember this.
Guilty because I had soiled the sheets,
because the night nurse would have to change them.
He jogged down naked corridors,
returning from the linen closet,
new sheets and pajamas
bundled in his arms.

I remember not being worried
or afraid
that I had lost so much blood.
It was embarrassment:
that I was a child,
a small boy who had wet his bed.