Unarmed Response by Dilys Rose

They bring in our wounded
flown from Baghdad to A & E
at the Royal Infirmary, Edinburgh.
Daffodils stand to attention
on Middle Meadow Walk.
The hunt for Saddam hots up
and the media bombards us
with wall-to-wall war news.
The warm spring sun feels
undeserved and out of place
as lives in limbo blur by on stretchers.
In the glass-walled waiting room
where half the chairs are broken
and nobody's mopped the floor for days
a homeless boozer sips his tea,
grumbles to the vending machine.
A teenage mother snaps at her kid
thrashing about in his buggy,
cracking his head against the frame.
Behind curtains in Immediate Care
my loved one lies, not fighting,
not even arguing, barely breathing.
The scrawl of his heartbeat
crawls across a bleeping screen.

http://literature.britishcouncil.org/dilys-rose