Medical Humanities
What Kind of Vigil?
Nathaniel Brown
March 20, 2015
My eyes drift to the placid deep
Of arabica in a paper cup.
Bitter midnight.
Pages mount.
The sick wait.
Scraped thin over suffering,
Spread under sheets.
Wet. Clammy.
I bring no warmth, only cold
Instruments.
I work now with, now against
Masterful changes wrought through
Eons to keep us humming.
The clockmaker ticks
Down the beats, down the breaths.
Time will consummate their fates and mine.
Sometime soon, maybe even
Tonight.