BED FIVE

Bed five has put up with a lot tonight

First the man with TB

A cleaning with the UV light

Then the man who hit a tree

Whose hand was de-gloved

And whose hand was then shoved

into cotton

And the blood oozed through layers of gauze

but he'll be alright

Although he scraped off all his skin

And took a quarter of the night

To find the hand surgeon

He’ll still be alright

Oh Bed Five has put up with a lot tonight

There were countless coughs in between

The man whose leg swelled and turned green

Like a wet sausage three weeks old

The woman shrieking of sparkles and scrubs

Spills of the plastic vomiting tubs

A baby who might have a cold

(Don’t worry all the baby caught

was the annoyance of a nurse, distraught

Because the baby’s dad had brought

Her when she was perfectly fine

Amidst broken bones and kidney stones

In an ever growing line)

But bed five's done with tonight.

Because it doesn't get to change with the covers

Or tossed with the pillows into the waste

On its blue leather surface a sharp smell hovers

Of wipes with a bitter chemical taste

And bed five’s put up with a lot tonight

But they’ve got to ask for a little bit more

Because a man who's a little bit different

Has just come through the double door

He's not on his feet

He's flat on his back

Schizophrenic psychosis

And a septic attack

Have him where no man could have laid him

Where he can’t fight anymore

And his eyes are wide open

And bed five braces itself

For one more battle to fight  

For one more body tonight.

They have to stick a tree trunk needle

Into a vein in his upper thigh

The man has never been this feeble

No one’s ever heard him cry

The tattoos crawling all over his skin

Do his trade verify

There were drugs beneath the table

But none of those were able

To inject immortality

And now look at him lie

Beneath the fingers of a bespectacled nurse

Who holds him to the bed

And the doctor who hit his artery

Three times it has spouted red

That was just his body

But his soul would have bled

If he saw the girl holding a purse

Invited by the bespectacled nurse

We can only imagine how he would curse

And the things he would have said

Had he been able to see her

With him less alive than dead

She’s staring at the table

At the glare of his body in the light

All his body exposed to the light

The writhing and a high-pitched groan

Are the only signs that have shown

This man to be alive

He’s carried only by bed five

And even that may not be enough anymore.

His spirit’s already on the floor

Soul knocking loud on St. Peter’s door

And the doctor prepares try number four

And hits the artery again

And the man spasms again

And bed five creaks and then

His head flips, he sees the girl standing there

And it seems he’s almost aware

Of her unrelenting stare

As she studies all the things

That illness has laid bare

And the doctor goes for try number five

And she just watches the patient writhe

Fifth time is not the charm

And it seems more like harm

Than help as the doctor stabs

Him and the nurse reaches out and grabs him

And the beeping of the machine

Begins to scream

As his BP starts to dive.

And they rush the girl out through

The curtain that covers up bed five

And then they call code blue

Code Blue E R Bed Five.

The next time the girl saw bed five it was waiting to be made

She approached it with the chemical wipes

Feeling a bit afraid.

But she felt pity also and there was part of her that prayed

That man had left Bed five alive

Left from where he laid.

But Bed Five knows the past

And those that passed away

And somewhere in the middle

Tonight became today

And somewhere in the middle

A patient found the darker way

And Bed Five had to let it go

--Tsarina Copyright 2014