The spread of the deck
Red upon black suited admirers
Have become my friends.
They fall like lovers in a game
Of patience.

Isolation is like a night visit to a supermarket:
Slow intervals between the beep of the till
Are the only signal the patient still lives.
Burnt plastic melting with squealing wheels,
Cold metal trays and hard-lined aisles
So draconian that a Hitler-Frau designed them.
Objects that weigh much more than they appear
Dig deep welts in my hands, like lovebites.

My tap drips incessantly too;
It is affected by the same lonely pause -
Silence then a flood of droplets.
Sometimes the tap turns unexpectedly
Almost as though a phantom inhabits my toilet.
I envy the droplets as they scurry down the drain
As though they roll down porcelain with purpose.
I toil: hiding up the tap refusing to come out.
This is my hibernation and my habitation.
Sustenance leaks down into me,
Almost washing me away.
But not quite.
I long to be a droplet, or a solitaire card.
Every motion and I will fold, into nothing.
How dastardly a disguise that would be.

Though still I am to learn the rules of patience.