i.

On the ward,
they said
you were in
Cubicle 9,
but you weren’t.
There was someone
in there
I didn’t recognise;
a person
truly unsettled by illness,
their features
scrambled,
bald -
not you.

I closed the 
marshmallow pink
curtains.
I looked at the ceiling.
A fly was trapped in the strip light casing.
Why would they say
Cubicle 9
if you weren’t in
Cubicle 9?
I peeked in again,
reconciling my losses
already.