A different view — Summary

Balachandran VTrivandrum 23.03.2010Anxious

People sprouted on either side Slightly angular, they seemed to grow Away from me. Farther, outside the wire mesh I saw trees growing away from me. Overhead, across the whitewashed ceiling The wiring, the lights and the fans ran past Like blood vessels and organs splayed, of a roadkill.

Pulled, pushed, turned and twisted From corridor to corridor, elevator to elevator I hung on, in a limbo.

The stretcher offers perspectives strange…

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The speaker is being wheeled through a hospital on a stretcher, and the poem only reveals this in its last line. Until then we share the confusion of lying on one's back: people seem to "sprout" at odd angles, and even the trees outside the mesh appear to grow away from him. Everything is slightly off, and everything is pulling back.

The most striking image comes from the ceiling, where wires, lights and fans become "blood vessels and organs splayed, of a roadkill." The speaker sees the building as a body laid open, and the comparison hints that he feels like the helpless, broken thing himself. Being "pulled, pushed, turned and twisted" from corridor to corridor, he has no control, and "limbo" captures that waiting, in-between state.

The mood is anxious and detached, but the closing line, "perspectives strange…", is dry and quietly understated. The trailing dots leave the unease hanging.

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