Hospital Row

Hospital Row gleams this crisp morning
And good signs with good words
Like care, visitor, excellence, and wing
Make me smile.

Hospital Row, home to sadness.
I see it in the bald child's face,
see it in his wheelchair.
I see it in the haggard woman, hooked to tubes,
inhaling her last moments of life.

And beside her, the hospital Burger King,
laughing at it all.