120,000 dead across the pages where I sink my head
I watch the nurses struggle home and hang my hopes up in the leaves
Just one more tear, a nameless face - there's efficiency in mortality
And my final play at dignity is a rag hung between two trees
An erring shape scraped away into a pile of blank remains
Where cruelty doesn't bother hiding and you will never find me
One eye on the skip, two feet in the gutter
An expired service-user fleeced tooth and nail
Someone's sitting target, another's smug liberal virtue
Slipped through the cracks in the grip of a narrowing world
And my final play at dignity is a rag hung between two trees