visiting hour

• the hospital smell / combs my nostrils


  metaphor: overwhelming smell
• bobbing along


  synecdoche: represent him going along the corridor
• green and yellow corridors


  metaphor: sickly and dirty hospital
• what seems a corpse


  word choice: patient or dead body
• is trundled into a lift and vanishes / heavenward


  metaphor: the hospital deals with people's lives
• nurses walk lightly, swiftly


  imagery: vivid and descriptive language which highlights and shows the gracefulness
• here and up and down and there


  anaphora: 'and' creates a rhythmic effect drawing attention and amplifying the nurses' drive to save lives
• slender waists miraculously / carrying their burden


  metaphor: implies delicate fragile nurses, but still carry the emotional weight from dealing with lives
• miraculously


  word choice: the poet is shocked by their ability to deal with life or death calmly
• so much pain, so many deaths


  repetition: 'so' emphasises the
• their eyes / still clear


  metaphor + enjambment: he wonders how they don't cry, 'eyes' emphasised
• so many farewells


  metaphor: a lot of deaths
• Ward 7.

  short sentence: implies he has arrived at his destination
• white cave


  word choice: she is surrounded by the white curtains in the hospital
• forgetfulness


  word choice: she is unconscious
• a withered hand


  metaphor: weak hand
• trembles on its stalk


  metaphor: can't stand without support
• an arm wasted / of colour


  metaphor + enjambment: pale arm, 'wasted' emphasised
• a glass fang is fixed


  metaphor: an IV dripper is attached to her
• not guzzling but giving


  antithesis: juxtaposition of contrasting ideas, showing how it is not taking like a vampire, but giving generously to help the patient
• between her and me / distance shrinks till there is none left


  metaphor + caesura: he kisses her, 'distance' emphasised
• the distance of pain that neither she nor I / can cross


  metaphor + caesura: they are physically right next to each other but mentally she's so far away, 'I' emphasised, showing he feels guilty
• black figure in her white cave


  oxymoron: black and white contradict, striking a visual image representing how one is alive and the other dying
• clumsily rises


  word choice: he is unable to control himself due to his overwhelming emotions
• round swimming waves of a bell


  metaphor: visiting hour is over
• dizzily goes off


  metaphor: he is unable to control himself
• growing fainter, / not smaller


  metaphor: from the perspective of the patient, the poet seems like he's disappearing behind their eyelids
• fruitless fruits


  oxymoron: reminds him of the proximity of death and hopelessness as the fruits will not be eaten, failing to serve its purpose
• eyes move / behind eyelids too heavy / to raise


  metaphor + caesura: heavy fatigue, emphasised with line breaks
• she lies / in a white cave of forgetfulness


  metaphor: displays a vulnerable patient in a hospital bed