SYLVIA

On a bare bed she sits
Sobbing to her knees.
Bedding now stripped,
And thrown to the floor.
Screaming for a nurse.
Desperate for a shower
To wash away the memories.

Old, broken and blind
She listens and she heard
The voice of a man,
At her bedroom door.
Screaming out for help
Desperate to be free
From such old and painful memories.

She remembers years gone by
Nightly visitors with cash
Pimp who’d take his share
Leaving her with nothing,
But addiction, scars and fears.
And she’d scream into her pillow
With each night’s new memory.

She remembers the beatings
The bruises and infections
Pimp who’d take his share
Her money and her body
He owned her every move
And now she screams towards the heavens
Pleading God to take her memory.

She remembers her girlfriends
Together in the game
And how they’d hold her still
With careful skill - a knitter’s needle
Because there was no other choice
And she would scream into a bottle
To drink away the painful memory.

On a bare bed she sits
Bedding’s on the floor.
A man walked past her room today
And she lost all self-control
Screaming for a nurse
Desperate for a shower
To wash away the memories.

Sixty years now, a world away
But memories didn’t die
Of sex, beatings and exploitation
Abuse, drugs and manipulation
She screams out one final time
Knowing it is her last
Finally releasing her from memories now past 

This is a poem I have written about a beautiful lady I nursed named Sylvia. She was about 90 when I first met her in 1990. She had been a former
prostitute. She hated men understandably. She was blind, but she would strip her bed if a man came anywhere near her room. She would take up to an hour in the shower and almost go through an entire cake of soap. In her more lucid moments, she would talk about life as a prostitute in the 1920s and 30s and 40s. The story I have woven here is reflective of the stories she would tell. All of us who cared for her had enormous love and respect for Sylvia.
(Written 27/07/2021)

Louise Goodwin