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A poem about my transplant experience

Feature -

Poppy lives in Wales with her sausage dog Willie. Poppy is an artist and a former winner of our Helen Barrett Bright Ideas Award. She received a double lung transplant in 2015 – and says it has “completely changed her life”. To mark Organ Donation Week, we’re sharing a poem Poppy has written about her transplant experience.

Photo of PoppyGrafted

There happens to be an Angel

         draped around my heart

Abject limbs securely stapled

     organs grafted rib from rib

 

    A golden mile of health

        from this mortal union

 

This Angel is my living sin

 

A stranger that sheds a tear upon my skin

I can divine the temper, the guilt within

I may whimper or scream it true

  but I shall never walk back to begin

 

contour shaped anonymous

 

Features glean through a tide of Morphine

Where we collided in an extraordinary dream

 

The shadow of anaesthesia makes you the eternally unseen

 

A tale synonymous with truth

A shot of infinity reigned your space within

A hollow of my body

 

You built a cross

 

I can't kiss your feet

   only hear your wings beat

 

You fell down gracefully through altruism

Cured my exacerbation

  and from the stone of your grave I keep my grief repressed

 

You shine through me as

   - a Light

   -a Silence

   - a Crest

 

Yours is not a face I can pencil in

 

You are the truth that runs my veins

You shot my nerves and created The Breath

I hope you see me walking, dancing in your wake

 

Dear Angel/Donor,

   be with me here in the bloom

I devote myself to you


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