ER Poems

BY GABRIELLE HURLEY

DROPLET PRECAUTIONS

I don’t know what provides me with more agency

in a situation where every body is exposed to microscopic hijackers

I have spent so much time begging for the world to stop

and now it has, except for here

asking for the ER to so much as slow down is like asking the tides to cease

a request all the more impossible in the midst of a pandemic

so we come to work while the world remains trapped inside

prisoners in their homes while we aid prisoners in their bodies

everyone else locked away in an effort to stem the flow of coughs and gasps streaming

into our waiting room

and I am happy to have an active role

yet I stand in the shower after each shift and figure

I’ll either get out when I feel clean or when the water runs cold, whatever comes second

and more often than not it isn’t until chills run down my spine and icey drops fall from my hair

that I finally turn the water off

PATIENT

What if i lived my whole life

with the patience and the nearly meditative presence

of a doctor seated beside a bitchy, snippy patient

fuming with unwarranted exasperation

in the middle of the night

with a hand on her shoulder

and a slowness that values the reaction of her heart

the metaphorical one

more than the one in her chest,

more than her physical chemistry,

more than the nurses waiting at the door

and the paperwork piling up on his desk

UNTITLED (2018)

though my job experience consists of working in an emergency department

and cutting up cadavers

i have yet to watch anyone die.

i know that eventually i will,

but for the most part,

i don’t have a lot of direct contact with death in my work

other than its constant presence,

a ghost looking over my shoulder at the radiology report with“metastatic” jumping out

a miasma following at our heels as we power walk to help someone

while a code called overhead spells out potential catastrophe

but the docs don’t seem anxious, much less panicked

because even though we want to be able to order magical medications

and show up fast enough

and do CPR long enough

if there’s nothing we can do

death is impending,

and there is no one with enough smarts to stop it.