The hospitals are quieter at night
Nurses sit at desks reading case notes by lamplight
Preparing medicines, making their checks
As Doctors try to sleep
Restless, expecting to be called

Patients try and doze
Removed from the familiarity of home
They contemplate life in the growing darkness
Wondering how they have come to be here

Cleaners dust handrails and mop floors
This is all part of another days work for them
Nothing extraordinary
They sweep away the dramas of the day
Dispersing the difficult conversations
Polishing the tear stained floors of waiting rooms
Preparing each room for another life and death battle

They will puff ******* cigarettes and pull coats around them
When they finish their shifts

The hiss of oxygen dancing through plastic tubes
Mixing with the hoots of owls
While balmy air floats over the concrete roofs

Sunrise is a long way off
And the night will grow darker and darker still
Tomorrow, some will go home
Other will take their last breath
Make their last gaze
Have their last contact with another human
Tomorrow feels like a long way away

Machines will deliver cheap coffee
In plastic cups to offer hot comfort
For weary relatives and night time arrivals
And tired eyes will blink
Under strip lighting, wishing they were tucked up at home

At eight o’clock the shutters of the café will be pulled up
And ordinary people will awaken the corridors
Banishing the spirits of the night hospital

But for now, though, the world sleeps
The hospital only waits
Never sleeping, only waiting for life to take its next turn