Construction Under Ward 8

We dug a hole
In the middle of a hospital
With drill, pick and sweat
Unrespecting of the chaste silence.

Between three buildings the hole
Was dug beneath leering antiseptic windows
Sneering antiseptic windows from which did hang
Deadpan nurses
Now not going anywhere because
Nurses always seem to be going somewhere
To duty, gossip or bed
Prim in complete worlds. Ignorant of
Muddy labourers and
Common blistered hands.

The heat and dishwater
Leaked down and was trodden with our boots
Lost but always felt
Lost but always smelt
With that sweating hole's bite.

But in the sometimes easy rhythm of work
We were cut off from
The automatic stares
The painful cares
Of that great impersonal city
Lost in the grudge of the shovel
And howl of the drill.

N. W. Bilbrough