| For months she has dreamed in red, screaming when she sees blood on the floor, blood dripping from gloves. Silent and numb at work, her hands shake when she hangs a unit. Day after day she startles past the room, flashes on his last whisper: I'm so scared. |
| She turns toward his words. Blood flows from his mouth, soaks his gown a deep red-brown. She Code Blues a prayer, stands aside as the team arrives in ones and twos, breathless, mouth blood pulsing. Starched and spotless compressed in the doorjamb, she is untouched by the blood on their gloves, the blood in the lines, the blood spattered on white Nikes, floor slick with cells and plasma. Eyes locked on the flat-lined monitor, she hears the last blood gurgle, the team quiet and calm in a lake of blood. And after they raise him on the cart, she fills out the forms, watches a woman mop, hears soles stick to the floor, the splash of pink water on steel. |
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