-Requiem from behind curtain #2-

The curtain is drawn along its tracks.

The older nurse smiles my way sympathetically

Knowing my father is done-for.

She was trained in an era

When overt compassion had standing.

The young nurse went about her business

Like a sweet machine.
I watched them both from the entrance to his room.

The older one glanced at his occasional face

Tucking and rolling and brushing the sheets

With a gentle swipe of her palm.

The young one pulled, squeezed and jerked

The transparent tubes, bending over his narrow bed

As if she was adjusting a carburetor;

The bed without a wrinkle.

It's the young one I'll think about on the drive home.

In the morning her ass is beautifully defined

Beneath the drape of her starched-

White uniform and she sports a little

Blue pin above the breast at the collar

Which calls her to order.

It’s surprisingly active in the corridor

Justifying the sounds of its mechanics.

Nobody’s screaming inside the critical care units.
The comatose lay silently. 

Pistons continue to oxygenate.
Metals and plastics fill the space of clinging life.

The older nurse smiles sympathetically

As she leaves the fading bedside for the last time.

The young one’s already servicing the old

Gentleman pumping away in the room behind curtain #3.

                                              The Truesdale Hospital ICU,
                                              Fall River, Massachusetts