If I Could Speak
If I could speak, my words would fragment harmony.
Crash cart innards sprawl on the floor.
Open chests, cuffed hands, grimacing faces under stress.
An open skull leaks bright red.
Mangled limbs dangle by a thread.
I take no satisfaction in my observations.
Screaming families with acutely deceased kin.
Paralyzed teens with chest tubes and bullet wounds.
Elders intubated from innocuous falls.
Alleviation comes slowly, if at all.
Kind hearts wear vicarious scars of human fragility.
Edward K. Maybury is a Flight Surgeon for the United States Navy, currently attached to Carrier Air Wing 7, based at Naval Air Station Oceana in Virginia Beach, VA. He graduated from Kansas City University in 2023 and completed his Transitional Year internship at Naval Medical Center San Diego. He has previously published poetry in Pulse and commits most of his writing efforts to poetry and memoir.
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