The Friday Poem on 01/12/2023
‘Morphine Driver’ demonstrates Nia Broomhall’s mastery of sound play — look at the lovely alliteration of “soft shunt” and “bleeding into a blue”. She uses rhyme and part-rhyme effectively, for example in “believe / leave”, and “rehearse / place”. In fact, we become increasingly aware of sound throughout the poem, from the faint noises such as the sound of fluid in the tube of the morphine driver, the whisper of the nurse, and the insect buzzing at the window, to more intrusive noises such as the roar of the aeroplanes in the sky. Somehow, imminent death is conflated with this small bee or bluebottle trying to leave, and this is underlined by references to other things leaving or disappearing — the residue of the planes, for example, “a tail of nothing or red smoke”. We particularly like the jump at the beginning of line five, as if to focus on the pain of the sick woman is too much to bear. The last line feels somehow open ended, which seems appropriate.
Morphine Driver
We could hear it was working from the soft shunt of fluid
through the tube and the reassuring whisper
she’s fine, but we searched her face for the relief and found
cloud-clenched lids, thin-needled nothing and
today they are rehearsing for the airshow. The house is full
of the noise of nine planes, arrowheads and revolutions
though every time I look up there is an edge of a wing
or a tail of nothing or red smoke bleeding into a blue
that is full of just noise. A sky is a big place. Somewhere in here
there is a tiny panic at a window that might be closed or
a bee or not or a bluebottle trying to leave. A sky’s a big place
and we will not believe in things we cannot see.
