The Hospital Emergency
was quite a sight that night
With crowds of sick and injured folk
and doctors decked in white.
A young intern stood by my side
before I’d been there long.
He glanced towards my little son
and asked me what was wrong.
“He’s bleeding from the ear,” I said,
“I wish you’d have a look.”
He nodded and produced at once
a form thick as a book.
He took the history of my son
from birth to present-day
With all the infant illnesses
he’d suffered on the way.
‘Gestational diabetes’ first
was neatly noted down
And then ‘C-section’, ‘hammer toe’
and ‘elevated crown’.
He asked about bowel motions next
and the pattern of his sleep.
I’d never known a dinkum doctor
delve so very deep.
He laid him down, with tummy bared,
to ponder and palpate
Then scratched his head and turned to me:
“What was it he last ate?”
I swallowed down my fuming fit
and pointed at his gear
“Why don’t you take,” I clenched my teeth,
“a look inside his ear?”