DEBRIDEMENT

Quiet, for Friday evening.

No arrests, no overdoses, no stabbings, no drunks.

But early yet.

The telephone rings:

An explosion. Casualties imminent.

Hasty calls summon extra hands,

as cubicles are cleared, equipment readied.

Then we wait, standing around

while distant sirens echo apprehension.

Amid blue light splashes

the first arrival is stretchered in,

along with acrid smell of burnt flesh.

Abruptly, all are utmost speed,

minds concentrated.

Within minutes it’s a melee, an episode of M*A*S*H* -

without jokes, or commercials.

Windpipes are intubated, veins cannulated, chests drained.

Medical paraphernalia fights failing body systems:

shouted vital statistics report the front line struggle.

My job is to picture the injuries,

to see inside

beyond the stump where foot was torn away.

Blistering, its ragged wound leaks blood;

congeals to hide

severed vessels, shattered bones.

Nails.

Three-inch nails.

Nails driven into flesh,

indiscriminate of person or anatomy.

A modern crucifixion -

smeared with excrement.

Other material:

glass, and buried deep in someone’s neck,

a crumpled Coke can.

The victims are numbered,

hurried away to theatre.

There to face decisions:

what to amputate, what to leave -

balancing future disability against risk of infection.

An exercise in salvage:

over the bleep, bleep, bleep of monitors,

a cauterizing sizzle of diathermy.

Arteries are replumbed, flesh cut away

and wounds scraped, rinsed clean -

debridement.

* * * * *

‘GAY PUB CARNAGE: THREE DEAD’

According to police,

the perpetrator acted alone.

His fascist fascination made bombs out of a notion.

‘FAMILY MOURN BRIDE-TO-BE AND UNBORN CHILD’

Others knew him to be a card-carrying organiser,

inspired by U.S. race war theorists -

an ideology still at large.

No headlines in such accounts as these.

xi.2000 – v.2001