John Reed

From “Hospital Notes”

SQUARE white cells, all in a row, with ground-glass windows;

Tubes treasuring sacraments of suffering, rubber pipes, apparatus;

Walls maculate with old yellow and brown….

Out of a mass of human flesh, hairy and dull,

Slim shining steel grows, dripping slow pale thick drops,

And regularly, like distant whistles in a fog, groaning….

Young internes, following the great surgeon like chicks a hen,

Crowd in as he pokes, wrenches, and dictates over his shoulder,

And hurries on, deaf to the shuddering spirit, rapt in a dream of machinery.