Volume 199 - Issue 10
ICU
Author: John Upton
Med J Aust 2013; 199 (10): 705. || doi: 10.5694/mja13.11068
Published online: 18 November 2013
Published online: 18 November 2013
is a fortress, you press a button
and wait
like some malevolent bacterium.
“I’m here to see my wife”
a click, a heavy sliding. Arterial corridors
a nurse at a station
an orderly with a trolley of folded white sheets.
Another nurse, a tiny ante-room.
Hygiene is vital: over your clothes, you pull
a white gown of tough matt paper, you tie the back
slip on a face-mask, elastic behind your ears -
your breathing’s toxic.
An ...
is a fortress, you press a button
like some malevolent bacterium.
a click, a heavy sliding. Arterial corridors
an orderly with a trolley of folded white sheets.
Another nurse, a tiny ante-room.
Hygiene is vital: over your clothes, you pull
a white gown of tough matt paper, you tie the back
slip on a face-mask, elastic behind your ears —
bed, ventilator, ECG, all centred
on your wife, invaded by pneumonia.
Somehow you’ve reached the soul.
Nurses come and go, shifts start and end.
You sit, you walk, you stow the useless gown
and mask into a rubbish bin for burning.
The hospital exhales you. You drive, you sleep.
You press a button, name, door slides.
This morning the nurse doesn’t insist you tie