By: Gregg Norman

Stench of bones and bodies
Courting catastrophe
Camouflaged by cleaning fluids
Dour faces in waiting rooms
Children run screaming
Down wide waxed hallways
White coats and pea green
Pajama suits and sneakers
Floral print gowns
Tied toilet-friendly in back
Compassion fueled by coffee
On graveyard shifts
Wake up for this or that
Sure thing
Now go back to sleep
As if
Take that new joint for a walk
With a walker
A wheeled IV
Clattering with grit teeth
Cells line a long hall
In Emergency where
You wait forever
While latecomers and dopers
Vie to die ahead of you
What good you ask
Are hospitals
If they aren’t cutting you open
Or sewing you up
Plugging you in
Or letting you go
They are bad places to be sick
And the worst places to die
When you say
You love someone to death
Thiat is where it could happen
Where they stroke your face
To close your startled eyes
And tie up your astonished chin
Why did Donne say,
Death be not proud
When it never is