Joanna Gilman Hyde

The Hawk Deck 4:04pm

Since that first spring of 1993

with a ten-minute diagnosis of schizophrenia

crowning My Head after My Mother’s Death

and a summer’s hospitalisation for depression

when a psychiatric nurse tried to assure Me

“There will be other summers” —

how could She have known

there wouldn’t be a straight one

until now, twenty-three years later,

when My Second Husband

allows Me to throw

My Bed-thrashing Knees

across His Hip

in the dead of night

and reads My Extensive Medical Records

on His Lunch Break

to find out what happened?