At the Nurse's Station 03.06.010.

Julie, the duty nurse

In green scrubs

Has burst out of the sick bay

In stitches. She has accidentally

filled in two triage reports

Of the same case.

“I’ve seen two of that gentleman”

she tells the registrar

in blue.

”Funny, that.”

“Errr, time to go home, love”

shouts the triage nurse from Bay Three.

“You’ve had one more than the patient.”


Close at hand,

Mr Malik’s safe, brown Specialist

arms are bent over the file, the screen.

They are sturdy,

standing him at ease.


As Julie’s laughter

Reaches him.

A smile starts to slip up his face

like the sun trying to slip out

from abiding clouds.


A slight shade of blue

and dismay

has tinged the whites of

his downcast eyes as

he reels off the figures

internally.

His glinting stethoscope is still neatly

Curled around his neck,

a hard-won badge.


A yawn blooms in his mouth.

He half suppresses it, half allows it.

It’s still only three in the afternoon;

(time and space in the triage bays

has stiffened, too)

Elsewhere, nurses fly about.

The man in Bay Five

notices their agility,

their freedom of movement

because he has none.



On the only monitor not currently in use,

the acronym P.R.O.U.D unfurls itself,

shimmers on the light-filled screen.

The following lines form slowly

out of nothingness, then slide away

over and over again,

as shoals of fish from a tank.


P…patients are at the heart of all we do.

R..respect for others at all times.

O…our hospital is for you.

U…united in all our services.

D…dedicated to public healthcare.


The registrar writes up

Mr.Malik’s report with

a white pen.

There may be four hours

to kill before x-ray, so

I puzzle over the pen.


It is a replica of the bones

of a human leg.

The tibia and fibula are the part

gripped by the living carpals

of the registrar’s hand,

the nurse’s hand,

the specialist’s hand
Julie and Mr. Malik alight and depart

as deftly as swallows on a wire

at either end of the nurse’s station,

stoke up the ‘to be seen’ crate.


The triage curtains swish closed

and the fallen man is divided from

his care by blue fabric and the afternoon.