At most deaths I have not noticed the faces

preferring the distraction of tubes and signs and CPR,

focusing on small detail

not the unclinical tableau of this man

found stretched on his back

over gravel and tarmac

near the high pass

on this bluest of leisure Sundays

We cut off his leathers

the district nurse, the off-duty paramedic

the mountain rescuer and I

while a kayaker kept his neck in line

His stove chest was gasping

His carotid pulse a fading stammer – stop.

And we kept him going ten, fifteen

rib-crunching minutes until an ambulance

came with proper kit

and I could taste the tar of his last cigarette

as I upped the technology, slipped

a clearly futile tube in his trachea

and we kept on, spurred by distant rotors

and Helimed sets down in shallow bracken,

how suddenly strange, my city colleagues are

Thirty-plus now and no pulse, the outcome set.

Congent, I look around –

and all our faces are that absent metaphor

for how it feels to try and fail to save a life.

Sore-kneed, I look down –

and see on his, a day's stubble

and the keenest blue

around his fixed, dilated pupils

This poem is from The Hippocates Prize 2011, published by published by The Hippocrates Prize in association with Top Edge Press.

Chosen by Femi Oyebode.