Topics:
child,
consciousness related finding,
cranium,
darkness,
echocardiography,
eye,
foot,
forests,
patients' rooms,
sleep
Slow-drip dilutes the blood,
Count backwards from ten.
Ward clock swells
to its own universe.
Scant light to tell
fox from shadow,
woodland trail
from river.
On the cusp of sleep
it lifts its head,
roused to peak
consciousness
by the deadfall snap
of trespassing feet,
endless trudging
through an echo-chamber skull.
Woods recede in its eye
to dragonfly glow,
bastion night-light
in a child’s room.
Dawn will not come
without its say-so.
The fox bows to the river,
laps darkness.
Ward clock flips
to a new hour.
Permission to reprint granted to the American Society of Anesthesiologists, Inc. by copyright author/owner.
2019