Battle fatigue and Saturday night on call

Battle fatigue

The surgeon carves, dissects, sears the bleeding.

The anesthetist: numbness, paralysis, stupor.

My part: to hear and report

each limb's electric murmurs,

the brain's muffled replies,

mixed with the whine

of machines, arrogance, fear. We fight for

normal life on waking.

We trust normal will return for us.

They are out there, our charges,

ten thousand who woke well,

those who did not. I don't recall

their faces, just the smell

of blood and burning,

the urgent charge, uphold life,

sick wonder when the lamp goes dark, why did I

have to see that?

Saturday night on call

A sheriff guards the operating room. Inside we fight.

Her neck was broken in a brawl. She thrashes and spits

as we hold her shoulders and head still, work to

realign the bones,

constantly checking, dreading the worst,

blunt silence, slack body. Hours later with neck

straight, flipped on her belly, moving arms and legs

before she sleeps, I step out for a breath. The surgeon

is at the scrub sink, She'll just kill someone else.

That may be, I say, but we won't have killed her. It's been

many years. I still dread and hope for her, and I treasure

the stubborn skill of that surgeon.