A Multitude of Sins

[Philatone]

hey ray
my initial thoughts

I cannot handle dead bodies since
I had to shave a lifeless face
and scrape off sins like blades of glass, ...i got confused with this "like" with what is being compared. the sins? the scraping? i'm not entirely sure what is "like" the blades of grass...er, "glass". on another note, "blades of g_ass" is easy probably going to take readers down the wrong path
like chalk on a board, as if death squeaked. ...similar issues for me
His dignity, the staff nurse ticked –
Dignity and Choice, the Holy Script,
but his fingers were all done picking. ..not sure what this line meant (not looking for an explanation, just stating). self-mutilation?
I gritted teeth at his hollow cheeks, ...nice detail
as his eyes followed and his mouth spoke,
then grabbed at a skinful of liquid relief: ...who grabs? the answer affects the next few lines...
an all- day binge designed to scrub
the pallor and stink of stubble and death
from under my fingernails, off my breath.

Talking is easier. ....i'm taking that wat follows is the conversation between these guys
Do you remember the plant
in the top-floor lounge
that we both so heartily hated?
I never did find out its name.
For me it was merely ugly; for you
those large waxy leaves were its ears,
leaning in closer to steal your secrets,
absorbing smoke and speech.

I sit beside it now. ...this is a detail outside of the conversation i'm gathering. but, what is the it? at first, it feels like the plant. does the conversation return after (e.g., the speaker just talking to the patient) or is it just the speaker's reflection?
The old place is closed down, supplanted
by Home Treatment, Star Workers
and Voluntary Organisations.
The staff were left to rehabilitate
unwanted items of furniture:
my wife took a shine to a table, chairs
and this antiquated listening device.

I sit beside it now and hear you praise
Around the World in Eighty Days,
urge me to read it – I did, it was rubbish –
and tell how your father died so early,
how wicked and unworthy you are,
how little you desire or deserve to live;
your refusal to take yes for an answer. ...as in, the patient wants to be comforted, in a way?

Like a priest inside a confessional
I ask you to itemise your sins,
so I can tick them off a list:
schoolboy misdemeanours
of tuppenny ha’penny pettiness –
not the stuff of formal therapies!
Hardly hanging offences, I state,
you must be a saint or simply
don’t get out very much.
Waiting for the responsive laugh.
Waiting…

Now I see how the brown leather belt
we bought together, that you haggled over
with the market trader, is wrapped around
the bathroom door handle
and cuts your neck purple, the angle ...how long has this been happening for? the entire time? while he's been explaining sins and saying how good the book was?
of your purple shoulders, veins bulging
purple, eyes popping purple
for five or six days on life support;
pleading for an end to purple, waiting
for consensus to gather and grow
as thick and long as your beard. ...what beard? the stubble on his face?

i'm having a trouble with place; initially, I was thinking hospital (staff nurse, lounge) but it could also be a house. i also am getting a bit confused on several parts, though I'm blaming my own reading more than anything. I have to come back to this and see if I have new insights