Mother navigates to safety through the eye of a force 11.5

In desperation you cried out mayday in a hurricane,

intoning distress — a radio crackling to nothing and nowhere

in a storm of restless motion. Now we’re in the eye —

you’re asleep in my bed, breath rumbling like engines’

low notes, a rhythmic legato of letting go. Mania prised

from your steel grip with a welcome strip of pills.

Floundering and gasping you give up and sink

as meds move from packet to hand, from hand to mouth

until you’re floating on the slow tide of sleep, pulling

on shingle’s undertow of silent self-annihilation —

a salt sea of blood washes the day away — your tongue

murmuring over echos, sounding the currents below.

By my bed, a packet of diazepam, empty blisters bobbing

like buoys above the patternless goings on of your mind.