Obscenely Serene

We met in the emergency room, remember?

Your quiet blue eyes rolled past me, just a subtle glimpse.

On this putrid summer day, not yet September,

your pale skin fairly glowing under tawdry overhead light.

Your face didn’t seem to indicate a desire to converse.

I wanted to ask you what your story was,

but I seriously doubted that in any universe

my imagination could compare to the truth of it all.

We passed in the hall; such a sterile meeting place.

Not even a whisper of breeze, so obscenely serene.

I know I shouldn’t look at you, in such a state of disgrace,

but your face tells me there is a story, begging to be told.

Underneath the white cotton sheet your body gives form

to a frail body speckled in blood and delicate gore;

body’s human perfection now broken and torn.

A testament to trauma’s unlimited capability.

Outside the automatic doors the swollen clouds have ruptured,

pouring sweaty tears down upon blistering concrete sidewalks.

Mother Nature herself gnashes at the audacity mirrored

in the cold and chemical bleached hallways of this tomb.

We met one day, not long ago, in an emergency room

hall while outside nature disapproved of the slight against

one of her children with lightning and thunder’s loud boom.

So quick was our introduction on that fateful day that

there was no way to properly introduce myself, much less

a proper way to say goodbye.  I was on my way out the door

and you were on your way to the morgue.  But, I digress,

too much do I wander in thought.  For we shall meet no more.

© 2014 p.hill