Poem: Emergency

Emergency

After work, the board is wiped,
a new tally made to see who nets
the highest blood alcohol
or longest object extracted from a rectum
(I got seven inches, anyone beat a seven?)

The regulars stumble in
ordering a round, putting it on the tab
another shot of Ativan
before collapsing in bed in the hallway

Here, the sound always comes first
siren or scream, moaning or sobbing,
calling us from our stupor, winding our way
in anticipation to the trauma bay

where we hit the smell like a fist,
the burnt flesh, gunpowder and soot
the stale urine, the halitosis
the disinfectant with the sting of feces

Then the sight, the drunk men
victim of assault, now returning the favor
or the teenager status post mosh pit
or the pregnant woman rolled from a moving car

I lay hands, feel that Rice Krispie crepitus
along the neck of this upstanding
seventeen year old, shot by the owner
of a convenience store he tried to rob

The taste lingers all the way to the bathroom
where I spit up disgust and pleasure,
that adrenaline that drives me, like these people,
to come back again, again, again.