The odor of betadine still lingers, though no woman
has mounted the stirrups for days, and the walls,
no longer sterile, vibrate with the knells of 18 rounds,
a chiming phone, the vestigial memory of a pulse. I remember
a ricochet of light and blare, mad ducking under gurneys
and desktops, the doctor slumped in the lab, steel tray of fetal
remains mingled with his own. There was a woman, which one?
who offered me someone else’s urine with her forlorn smile
and made-up name, her partner in the waiting room, armed.
Afterwards, we shuttled patients out the back door, bootied
and gowned, baby-blue. I heaved onto a discarded placard:
Smile! Your mom chose life. The sky over the parking lot whirred
with helicopters. Only some of us recognized the blood on the walls.
Bullhorns cleared the area of newsmongers and prophets
of doom, prescient Cassandras biding time, unhurried.
