THE NURSE
The exhausted nurse stood
by the bed as the patient
breathed her last,
She held the woman's hand
in hers, then heard the final
rasp.
She felt a hand upon her
back, then a whisper in her
ear:
'Come on my love, go take
a break, you're no longer
wanted here.'
Someone took her by the
arm as her tears began to
fall,
She mumbled she was
sorry; 'This isn't me at all.'
She now was in the
bathroom; in the mirror,
saw her face,
She ripped her tear-stained
mask away and said: 'I
hate this bloody place.'
She tried to stop the flood
of tears at the loss of a
dear friend,
A fellow nurse in training,
she was with her to the
end.
They'd met as you8ng
probationers, met their
setbacks with a shrug,
They'd laughed and cried
together, helped each
other with a hug.
But that was many years
ago, a friendship forged
in steel,
The loss of her dear loyal
friend will take some time
to heal.
The grief-struck nurse sat
in her car, the end of a
12-hour shift,
Her colleagues understood
her pain when she began
to drift.
As she drove home, she
passed a park, saw them
all out in the sun.
She wanted to wind the
window down: 'Do you
know what you have done?'
She bit her toungue and
carried on to where her
children slept,
She didn't want to wake
them for they'd know
that she had wept.
She'd do the same tomorrow
and try to save a life,
A man might clasp her
hand in his and wish it was
his wife.
But people will continue,
their selfish aims pursue,
Some will say, quite stupidly,
that this is only flu.
A mile away, one nurse
will be standing by a bed,
Praying that the doctors'
skills will ease the list
of dead.
Yes, we will clap and bang
our cans, cheer our nurse
with fulsome praise.
But all that lovely nurse
will want is normal working
days.
BY
DARRYL ASHTON