Weekends

Medicated Limbs, lonely and greedy. Sick for attention, dying for
company, you're drunk for days. Overburdened, moss-rotten branches
heave slowly with the weak night breeze, like a failing heart, and
graze the stone wall.

The nurse in me won't let me leave.

Homemade illness hardens into sugar and batters your speech, draping
your dry white tongue over your teeth. Red pinholes for eyes, and
your mouth is a smudge.

Do I have to watch tomorrow afternoon while you keep your face
warm with the television and the maple drips on the lawn chairs that
flake and rust on the flooded terrace?

When you start snoring, I'll take the tray from your lap and tip you
over so I can look for the rest of your lunch under the green sofa
cushions and probably find those pills you've been hiding. By the time
the clouds dim and I start seeing us in the windows I'll be drunk
myself and ready to wake you for dinner.

(Viggo Mortensen - 1985)