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      January 22, 2024SurrenderRachel Mallalieu

      Patients crowd my dreams
      demanding to be seen
      and saved.
       
      When I work, they clog
      the waiting room and die
      in hallways.
       
      At the beginning of the pandemic,
      we began observing a moment
      of silence each time someone died.
       
      I usually placed my hand
      upon their shoulders
      and thought this was a life.
       
      Last week, when a woman’s heart
      stopped outside of CAT scan,
      a nurse straddled
       
      the gurney and started pumping
      her chest. It didn’t work.
      Well shit, the nurse said,
       
      now I’m all sweaty.
      No one stopped or bowed
      their head.
       
      Today, in the winter woods,
      only the deer’s split
      tracks mar the mud-strewn path.
       
      The trees sway with the knife-
      edged wind and creak
      like rusted hinges.
       
      Around the bend, two swans
      paddle in a January pond.
      The dog gallops ahead—
       
      where the boulder bears a coat
      of moss—his tail a white flag
      waving surrender.

      from #82 – Winter 2023

      Rachel Mallalieu

      “As an emergency physician, I am forever hoping for things to go back to ‘the way they were.’ The pandemic, however, exposed and exacerbated longstanding issues such as emergency room boarding and the lack of a medical safety net for many. Now we are also severely understaffed. Many days, we do not have the nurses and techs needed to safely staff an ER. Medical staff is burning out at alarming rates and patients are suffering. I don’t know the answer, but something has to give.”

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