In the ER, we try to save them all,
yet, each death of a stranger
is a small death inside me,
an accumulation of failed
effort that cripples imagination,
cripples empathy, presses
the dream closed.

Still, each departure
can be a small reprieve
from holding back the flood
of sick and injured souls,
a momentary opportunity
to draw breath deeply.

Running along beside a stretcher
down a corridor trying
to pump a man’s chest.
His eyes already glazing over,
he won’t revive.
I feel nothing.

Evolved into a numb creature,
I see only shadows, not unlike a cave fish,
which lost its eyes over millennia
underwater, and now senses nearby objects
beneath its skin.

The stories build:
a little old man
with a gun in his pocket that
discharges a bullet into a nurse
helping him undress. Blood days
when red spreads through clothing
in patient after patient, days when
the thud of defib echoes past the door,
and “Clear!” follows to no effect.

Yet, I still hope
there is a flare
from the departed,
enough to kindle
a newborn star,
a few ions to initiate
a thunderbolt, or move
a moth’s wing to waft
new morning breath,
enough vitality to seed
a plum on the tree
in the neighbor’s yard.

Roselyn Elliott is the author of The Pause Between Inhale and Exhale, a full-length collection of poems from Main Street Rag Publishing Company, and of four poetry chapbooks: Ghost of the Eye; Animals Usher Us to Grace; and, At the Center, (Finishing Line Press), and The Separation of Kin (Blueline Magazine chapbook award, (SUNY Potsdam). Her poems and essays are published in The Minnesota Review, New Letters, diode, The Cumberland River Review, and other publications. Roselyn is a retired registered nurse and holds an MFA in poetry from Virginia Commonwealth University. Previously, she has served as poetry editor at Streetlight Magazine, and taught writing at Piedmont Virginia Community College, WriterHouse in Charlottesville, and at Visual Art Center of Richmond. She lives in Richmond, Va.