by Lara Dolphin
How sometimes I wake because I think
I hear an IV alarm so I stand in the starlight
watching a truck back up in the alley, and I don’t
mention holding a dying person’s hand wishing
I were anywhere else, and who would suspect
I can eat Jello with a tongue depressor or know
a trick for getting blood out of shoes and clothes and hair
and it is, now that I think of it, rather remarkable
that I can go twelve hours without sitting
or a lifetime without forgetting
those few miraculous patients
who changed my life forever.
--published by Cholla Needles