The Hospital
Prose poem ‘The Night Shift’
Alone in the dark, the silence not interrupted by snoring or soft female farts, causing her to turnover. Alone between clean white sheets, the lights out, the moon in the window floating and filled with drowsiness.
The great nightly workings of the hospital, with all its caring perfection and clean, sterile smells disguise the warmth of human love or the stench of dying.
In and out, nurses, checking blood pressure, collecting piss bottles, disturbing sleep, while another stands in a strobe of light holding my wrist.
She is thin, with nothing left. A stonecutter could not cut a nose so delicate on a face, not a wasted bone, skin transparent.
Then, in the shifts of night, a pause, a break in the silence, unseen faces, voices, laughter, and farewells upon a lonely little night-time station.
A new team to care for those injured on the battlefield of life.
Karen Schwartz, Nancy Oglesby, Katie Michaelson, Bernie Pullen, Michelle Jimerson Morris, Amy, Julia A. Keirns, Pamela Oglesby, Tina, Pat Romito LaPointe, Brandon Ellrich, Misty Rae, Karen Hoffman, Susie Winfield, Vincent Pisano, Marlene Samuels, Ray Day, Randy Pulley, Michael Rhodes, Lu Skerdoo, Pluto Wolnosci 🟣, Paula Shablo, Bruce Coulter, Ellen Baker, Kelley Murphy, Leigh-Anne Dennison, Patricia Timmermans, Keeley Schroder, James Michael Wilkinson, Whye Waite, John Hansen, Trudy Van Buskirk, | Dixie Dodd | Joanie Adams — Sightseer; Conjurer Of Words | Adda Maria | Dennett | Men.21times@gmail.com | Nancy Santos | Jenny Blue | Jack Herlocker | Love | Barbara J. Martin | Audrey Clifford | Maria Rattray | Jerry Dwyer | Denise Shelton | Trisha Faye | StorySculptress | Deborah Joyce Goodwin (Red:The-Lady In Blue) | Kelly Corinne Elliott | Emma Vincent | izzibella Beau | Karen Grant |
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