Day 618

In the shattered corridors
of the shattered hospital, patients
lie side by side.  Impossible
at first to tell who is dead
and who is living.  The nurses
and doctors are sick
from exhaustion and poisoned water.
Some can barely stand.  One
breaks down in tears
when a child she has
been treating finally
opens her eyes, sits up,
looks around.  Hour after hour.
When do they sleep?  What
do they eat?  What more
do they have within themselves
to give?  Time.  Grief.  Comfort.
Some, in a frantic effort to save
a patient, are even giving
blood from their own
broken bodies.