The pager squeals
through the darkness.
I make my way
and prepare for another changed life.
The words over the radio:
"two year old...traumatic amputation...massive blood loss...ejection...motor vehicle."
Instantaneous fear and dread.
Check my vitals: tachycardia.
Nothing prepares my eyes
nor my memory for the horror.
Wheel her in:
seeping death
a muted cry for help.
Instructions:
1. Insert the artificial sustenance
2. Transfuse life-relieve pain-induce sedation.
We all stand
seemingly in silence,
awed by the shear destruction a hurling mass of metal
and the failure of parental responsibility can create.
She is broken,
the deepest story of travesty
an epic Shakespearean tragedy:
the sanguine plastic
encasing the lost ability
to run into a father's arms.
Scrub away the pain and prepare
the operating room
for it will take all our strength
to heal this tiny angel.
I cry out to the Devils and Gods:
give me the strength
give me the presence of mind
to mend the wounds of her catastrophe.
