Visiting hour

• the hospital smell combs my nostrils


  synecdoche - intrusive
• green and yellow corridors


  has connotations of illness
• what seems a corpse is trundled into a lift and vanishes heavenwards


  brutality, "trundled" suggests lack of care
• I will not feel, I will not feel, until I have to


  repetition shows his desperation for wanting to control his emotions. enjambment emphasises - this breaks the flow of the sentence and reinforces the idea of putting something off for as long as he can
• "their slender waists miraculously carrying their burden"


  contrast between "slender waist" (connotations of light, fragile) and "burden" (connotations of heavy and intense).
• "nurses... farewells" - stanza 4


  enjambment - shows the business and stress
• ward 7. she lies


  caesura - a pause in the middle of the line, that in this case feels like a final hesitation by the speaker before he enters the ward.
• A withered hand trembles on its stalk


  frail, old, thin and suggests she used to be lively by using elements of nature
• a glass fang is fixed


  Metaphor, alliteration - The needle of the IV drip is compared to fang of a vampire. The vampire image is enhanced by the the idea of the arm being drained ('wasted') of colour.
• distance shrinks till there is none left but the distance of pain that neither she nor I can cross


  Repetition - "distance" makes the distance inescapable.
• black figure in her white cave 


  contrast - shows the difference of the two characters
• books that will not be read


  Paradox suggests that the speaker is not hopeful about the patient's outcome and demonstrates his anger at the useless nature of gifts
• fruitless fruits


  oxymoron - 'fruits' associated with sustenance and nourishment; however, he sees the fruits he has brought as 'fruitless' which contradicts this and suggests that he feels nothing he brings will make the patient better. This highlights the speakers anger and hopelessness