Nurses skillfully maneuver their way through a jungle of clear bags dangling from poles

With intestine-like twisted tubes precisely connected

To brightly lit monitors, loud alarms, and dinging bells

Fluids travel the tubes with deliberate speeds and measured paths

To the unaware patient quietly dependent

While he is briskly pushed in his bed through the hall

To sophisticated machinery and more specialized testing

It is the Intensive Care Unit, better known as ICU

Where angels work feverishly daily to save lives

Carefully balancing a necessary self-imposed survival numbness

With the deep human compassion that drives them