Fragments from a Night On Call

Hospital full of rooms, stark white,

Rooms filled with lonely souls,

The ER blares one yawning night,

In through the door the stretcher rolls.

 

“Let him go,” cried one thin small voice,

“He would not want to stay,

“Not like this, if he had the choice!”

His daughter screams, then runs away.

 

Code blue! Code blue! The call goes out,

CPR, an AED,

And chest compressions all throughout,

“Call it.” “Time of death, 12:03…”

 

Outside the door the daughter sits,

Crouched on the concrete floor,

Thoughts: only those that grief permits,

At the loss of one we adore.

 

The ER door does not rest long,

Soon comes another call,

The sirens signal something’s wrong,

This time it’s trauma from a fall.

 

“She fell, she fell! She hit her head,”

The worried mother cried,

This moment was one she had dread,

‘Til now the odds they had defied.

 

“They said she’d die before eighteen,

“She just turned thirty-five…”

It was just that one faulty gene,

How much longer could she survive?

 

The doctors tried their best for her,

But all without success,

“Cremation is what she’d prefer,”

Her despair, she could not express.

 

One night on call, two families,

Two deaths, two tragedies,

The ER’s strange society,

In all its sad variety.

 

Love elephant and want to go steady?

Sign up for our (curated) daily and weekly newsletters!

 

Editorial Assistant: Kathryn Muyskens/Editor: Bryonie Wise

Photo: elephant archives