SCAN

SCAN

Polo mint capsule
Starch white
Drained of rainbows
Receives me stiffly
Through its
Stargate portal
Reduced to worm-hole vision
Mirrors place me in reflective mood
A tube hangs out of me
Horizontal mind floats
Headphones buzz
A disconnected voice shrills if I'm OK
My name scratched out by static
She could be in the control room
Booth or Houston USA,
She could be in Heaven but
Sounds like HAL
Go through the checks
Left hand holds switch
Press in emergency
For immediate attention
In case we have a problem
Brace myself for lift-off
The chamber shakes I'm aping Heston
I'm Hurt in Alien isolation
My chest feels heavy
Pregnant with dread
Lead thoughts scrape along the
Trenches of the brain
Like x-wing in Death Star searching
For elusive port
Eyes closed to try repose
Nose-free zone
Senses are vacuumed up
Shrink wrapped
Laid bare
A rose in suspended animation
Would smell as sweet- less
No perfume pricks the air
Round and round
I'm tumble-dried three cycles,
Itch I dare not scratch
Tectonic plates of neck and back
Must stay still, all animation suspended,
Status in stasis,
Mouth dry and open to
Aid respiration
Oxygen ingestion,
This wordless O my final stage of examination
All metal removed from me
Floating in my own tin can
Click click slick
The music slides sideways into head
 REM lullaby my dread
"If you believed they put a man on the Moon,
Man on the Moon."

© Stephen Evans 2013