The Emergency room at Uri

The sanatorium looms over the metropolis,

Stinking of bleach,

To conceal the scent of vomit and blood.

Yet I can taste them in the air,

From the children's ward,

Were we receive the needle’s flare.

To the emergency room;

Where the careless are stitched up.

I sit now in the waiting room,

Envious of the 7 year-old,

The one with the shaven head.

For she knows not of the enemy

Crawling in her blood.

Only of the smiling nurse

Who says she’ll get well;

And the child believes her,

Because that’s what children are for.

Perhaps she will recover,

The girl with the shaven head-

They caught it early it seems.

But I sit and become rancid,

I decompose in the padded chair.

The unknown case,

The basket case,

My head spins with every theory;

Every hypothesis;

Every possibility and,

For my whole body is ailing.

I pray for a medicine,

One that will do its work.

I pray and pray,

I smile at the girl with the shaven head,

And she smiles back.