In a Red Cross Hospital
Today I saw a face—it was a beak,
That peered, with pale round yellow vapid eyes,
Above the bloody muck that had been lips
And teeth and chin. A plodding doctor poured
Some water through a rubber down a hole
He made in that black bag of horny blood.
The beak revived, it smiled—as chickens smile.
The doctor hopes he’ll find the man a tongue
To tell with, what he used to be.