The hollowness of hospital halls at
oh-four-hundred is hallowed and I saw you
like a witness at the gallows, you sat before that
professional man in his seafoam scrubs and disposable cornflower cap
like a paper crown around his head, his ears
(like a noose around someone dear
to you) for I saw your face—your fear—and the space
between you and him, I was tempted to draw near
(draw you into my arms) discover the harm
that his words were bringing to that restless thing inside your chest
help you count your breaths
as the news comes dripping down
(I saw it crush you) the snapping sound
as the condemned neck breaks (as the body convulses and quakes)

and I was awake—walking through the lobby, stumbling by your odyssey
because I can’t stand the sight of it the
weight of it the plastic badge that graces my clavicle is too
valuable, nearly blessed, and I worry I won’t do my
best—

I was awake when I saw you, that
crisp caramel coat on your rigid shoulders, your
tense spine, your weary eyeline searching his face for a sign
leaning like a lilting ship, brimming with it all, giving
into these consecrated halls, about to let something too real slip
out—or violently pour—flood the white tile floor, crash and roar
all the way to the ambulance bay, to the elevators patient and gray
in their dutiful silence—I saw you there like a sinner about to pray—
and I haven’t forgotten how you froze at the edge of that warm chair, how
still he stood, how gentle he looked but he didn’t dare
destroy the air between (how close we never get) I bet
he did everything right yet
I walked into that twenty-degree night, left
you behind—

and I feed by the bursting anatomy lab light
drink from diagrams so detailed and bright
practice palpating bony landmark sites
grow beneath the weight of that coat, short and white,
(day after day) I ask and recite
I rest and I stir and I draw and I write

but I still haven’t forgotten—I still can’t quite shake
that scene as I pace these sacrosanct
halls, crisp and clean (I’m always too awake)—

I still can’t shake
it off (my lips were chapped)
and I’m still bothered by the light
(the halls too white)
I’m still stricken by the sight
(my hands were raw)
of that night when I saw
you.