Written by Bobartles

Image Courtesy of Royal Berkshire NHS website.

Just down the street, at the edge of the town,
there’s a jumble of buildings, old and run-down.
Behind steel-plated doors a full three inches thick,
lies Ward Number One,
where the sick heal the sick.

There’s a man dressed in white with a comforting stance,
whose father disowned him for being a nurse,
and a sister in blue with a phone in her hand,
and twenty-five packets of pills in her purse.

The man with the clipboard and half-hearted smile,
whose girlfriend bled out after something he said;
the cleaner who sweeps down the halls all day long
to drown out the sound of the voice in his head.

The day’s rounds are done, but still it is known
that only the patients will truly go home.
For this huddle of boxes of slate and red brick
is Ward Number One,
where the sick heal the sick.