One minute she's breathing room air
and the next you're barking orders
at a team wheeling in a crash cart.
You review signs and symptoms you missed,
the rough rhythm of her heart before she coded.
You want to believe your reasoning
was as elegant as a glass filled with cabernet,
and you want to forget the bottle you imagine
resting on a tray table at forty thousand feet,
ready to tumble when the captain announces
the plane is diving for an unscheduled stop.
But I don't need images of air disasters
to convince you doctors live
somewhere between reason and panic:
just flip open your laryngoscope, visualize
the vocal chords, and forget you have
fifteen seconds to thread the tube before
the breathless body on the bed turns blue.