Emergency Department

Emergency Department

by Kat Lehmann (Goodreads Author)

wheeled like dim sum (I make offerings)

my red rivers spill
in the tapping of the one good vein

while repetitive beeps of wayward machines
rehearse their uninspired 1980s electronica
and me, writing these words on the back
of an envelope with a borrowed dry erase marker

(don't second guess yourself, you did the right thing)

a night without my children—
I watch them round a distant corner with their father

"Irregular EKG," the doctor said.
"It's like your heart doesn't know what to do."

"Whose does?" I ask. Whose does.