In het verkeerde bed

Life is a hospital ward, and the beds we are put in
are the ones we don't want to be in.
We'd get better sooner if put over there by the window.
Or by the radiator, one could suffer easier there.

At night we dream of faraway places:
The Côte d'Azur, all perfume and light. Or nearer home
a cottage in the Cotswolds, a studio overlooking the sea.
The soul could be happier anywhere than where it happens to be.

Anywhere but here. We take our medicine daily,
nod politely, and grumble occasionally.
But it is out of our hands. Always the wrong place.
We didn't make our beds, but we lie in them.

The Wrong Beds, uit Roger McGough, That Awkward Age.