Jerry’s Journey – Category 1 (Urgent)

I wonder what they mean
by urgent?
How close to death
must a person be
to qualify?

And how many other urgent’s
are waiting in the queue?

Now a body in an ambulance
is always urgent –
siren screaming,
pulse racing,
‘pain level from one to ten’
sort of urgent.

But a name
on a computer screen
is simply that – a name.

And so my love,
I stroke your feet
and listen to you cough
and wheeze your way to sleep –
night after
night after
bloody night.

We must be patient,
we patients-to-be.