A Blessing for the A&E Doctor
Hilary Robinson

Blessed be the registrar
who snatches sleep in on-call rooms,

who showers when she can,
eats on the hoof, intends

to brush her hair quite soon.
Blessed be her love of tea,

chocolate, coffee, Lucozade
that gets her through these nights.

I praise her lack of social life,
her duty to those stretchered in,

wheeled from blue-light ambulances
to her intensive care. I laud

and praise her knowledge
that she hopes will heal their hurt

or break bad news to loved ones
with compassion, with respect.

And some time on from the end of shift
I bless her journey to the flat—

yesterday stacked in the sink,
nothing in the fridge again.

Hilary Robinson is a retired primary schoolteacher in the final year of a poetry MA at Manchester Metropolitan University. She lives in Saddleworth and has been published in the Interpreter’s House, Avis, A New Manchester Alphabet, Manchester Cathedral Magazine and Beautiful Dragons Press.

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