The Come-Back Kids

by Jack Ohms

someone turns on the T.V.
in the patients' lounge
while young Hanna sits
shaking violently
outside the nurses' lodge
with an open wrist;
she shuffles,
not quite knowing what to do,
then rushes back to her room,
slams the door
and wails high,
crying hysterically,
while we three sit and watch
some programme on MTV
about
old stars,
taking their clothes off,
going the bar circuit,
advertising weenies
and two-for-one
anything, anything
twenty years on
just anything
for another hit.