Ward 12,

worked here for years.

 

south corridor,

I’ve walked miles along it.

 

Hundreds of night shifts.

Habituated, I mean got used to it

I mean,

 

probably cost the marriage

but why speak of that.

 

Ward 12

room 9.

Mr Marner, I was young then, I was

 

frightened, can admit that now.

Couldn’t the night I found him,

 

the on-charge wasn’t long qualified.

Asked when the cleaners started

in the morning, voice

cracking down the phone.

 

He was almost

as young as me.

 

Room 8, always unlucky

or am I just superstitious?

 

Or just accept not everything

can be explained.

 

First time I saw a ghost was in there,

barely recognised him without

the pain twisting his face.

 

Mr Galbraith. Don’t call me Derek.

 

Then room seven

but it’s not as if there’s

only one presence in each room,

 

no visiting hours either

I guess, but during the day

they stay away, too busy,

 

night-shift you’re on your own,

corridors lengthen, the clocks

slow down I’ve seen it happen.

 

Alone with the machines

chirruping like insects, a beep’s

tone demanding attention,

 

turn this on, leave that off,

night shifting with sleepers’ dreams

bumping into the deceased

 

all around. Routine after decades.

Even the presences,

sensed more than seen,

 

are woven into

working nights for longer

than I thought I could endure

 

the grave yard shift,

hand-over at 7.00.

“All good?” they’d say.

“Not much to report,” I’d reply

 

if no one had died.

The dead at my side

I kept quiet about.

 

Becoming more ghostlike myself,

listening to the walls call out my name,

passing mirrors that show

a face I don’t recognise.

 

The ward knows too much to explain

so I keep deliberated pace down corridor-lanes

that continue through walls’ apparent solidity

 

that will dissolve

into flimsiness, soon enough

I’ll ghost through them,

chatter with the next

night shift candidate.

 

Jeff Kemp