Sounds

It was a long case,

The kind where, if you listen

carefully, you might detect the

faint rustle of a wound slowly healing…

So, I close my eyes and see

the soft hiss and wheeze of the vent

quietly snoring like a cat, and

gargling suction with a

pulsed drumbeat of irrigation

And quiet surgi-murmerations,

snapping hemostats, snipping suture,

amid the steadystrong beep

of pulse, monotone but poised

for the basso note of embolism.

The soft strains of music

are muted at my request

to hear the cautery hum

its atonal buzz and snap.

At the edge of conscious perception,

Even the IV sounds like

an insomniac’s bathroom tap

Slowly, maddeningly, dripping.

And soon, even my thoughts

are drowned in the ebb and flow

of timeless space,

the sounds of healing and life.