I went to visit
you in hospital because you'd had a terrible, terrible fall but worse,
you'd knocked yourself unconscious
and been burnt.

It was a shower over bath.
You stepped in, slipped. That triggered an epileptic fit. Falling, you grasped.
Turned tap on - full-blast,
the scalding one.

You had third degree burns
on seventy percent of fair, creamy skin. Skin that had glowed, a luminous
Caravaggio, before. You'd been literally
par-boiled.

The trauma of seeing you
so soul-shakingly vulnerable, so, so.. pressure-bandage trussed. Long locks
shorn haphazard off. What had not been poached
off. That is.

Did not hurt half as bad
as coming to understand that ingenious left hand had melted to crab claw.
There'd be no more
celestial music.

Oh, I know you heard
the nervous near-hysterica as I wished you well, then lay down on your lap
my ridiculously stupid present:
Best Horn Concertos.

So spectacularly
ill-chosen, though until then I had not known. No gift lavishly bowed
make up for your inconsolable
loss.

When you reached shakily out,
grasped bow, plucked it off. My heart absolutely stopped as you raised flop
to forehead, stuck it there.

Then tried to smile.