"Visits to the Nightingale Hospital, Exeter"

The Unit

Here come the boney ones,

each to their appointment.

They head for entrance doors

that open for them unasked.

You guess at why they’re here:

cancer, heart, scan results.

Everyone is iller than you.

After a life on infinity air, now

they’re working to get a lungful.

Faces are scoured-out,

this one’s tee-shirt draped

on kindling sticks, that one

sawing oxygen into gulps,

the cavity chest, hollowed face –

something has them by the throat,

pegs them down to this final lap:

surgery or meds, yet more tests,

all of it to push back and delay,

and serve out a bit more time.

Look, the doors open once more:

like hands, big palms showing

the long corridor within.

It’s time to do this last part.

The time to do it, always now.