Punctuated Lung

Punctuated Lung

 

                An emergency call and a fight for breath

                Hoarse husks of words battle from chest to tongue

                Faint sirens… they’re distant enough for death?

                Can Mark survive his

                                Punctuated lung?

 

The ambulance ambles

When he needs it to

Dash -

Rush hour nulls the power

Of the right-of-way blue flash.

 

His time of need - 5 o’clock!

Oh, the gravest of gridlocks…

(When the can-barely-hack-it

Bracket

Sit sullenly in traffic).

But anything’s got to be better than Mark’s last medical trip.

 

                                A doctor walks past -

           Mark gets fixed with a look.

A hospital is a place where eyes

                                Can do all the talking…

           And yet nothing is what

                                A lip sees.

                                But from his eyes alone Mark knows

                                He’s in a state of

                           Ellipses…

                                He’ll get seen as quickly as they can manage…

 

But this is one patient who’s had enough.

He stumbles to the glass, and struggles for air -

Though not initially heard

His moans and swearwords

Get through to the man sitting on the swivel-chair.

               

                He says: Can you repeat the question, Mark?

                                That’s quite the exclamation, Mark!

           And

                                Don’t take that as a ‘quotation’, Mark.

 

By the time Mark gets seen he’s slipped into a comma,

                And the doctors all regret that there’s nothing they can do.

 

                With the flick of a switch it’s a full-stop for Mark.

 

Mark slips away, but as he does so a thought consoles him:

‘Better than last time.

At least no-one went near my colon.’.