PTSD - Poem

PTSD

For months she has dreamed in red:

blood flows from the patient’s 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,

blood in the lines,

blood spattered on white Nikes,

floor slick with cells and plasma.

Eyes locked on the flat-lined monitor,

she hears the last drop gurgle,

the team quiet and calm in a lake of blood.

And after they raise him on the cart,

she fills out her forms,

watches a woman mop,

hears soles stick to the floor,

the splash of pink water on steel.