Down by the loading docks

The basement of the hospital

Is a maze of concrete tunnels

Switch-backs and hump-backs

Half-dead people wheeling them

Down to surgery

The rumbling of a biohazard cart

The aroma of expired human bodies

Expired IV fluids and

Amputated limbs

The creak of the door

As I enter the frozen section lab

Bathroom to the right

Formalin to the left

We use only the finest 10% buffered neutral formalin

In the basement hallways

In the basement laboratory

The phone rings

A colon removed from another fellow human

I walk down

The surgeon passes off a fresh specimen

It’s warm with body heat

Steaming blood and glistening tissue

Back in the lab I open it

A tumor the size of a

Tennis ball

Another life saved for now

I report the margins

Wash my hands

And continue down the

Back hallway in the basement

Down by the loading docks

Across from the ER

An ambulance is screaming up the hill

And down at the loading dock

A fruit truck is

Unloading a pallet of

Crisp apples

There’s a lot you can tell

About a place

By the quality of the apples

Crisp apples are a reflection of quality

Attention to detail

One simple item

That could so easily be bruised

The fruit truck backs up

Into the loading dock

The guy throws me an apple

I say thanks and keep walking

Past the docks

Around the circle drive

And back into the basement hallways

Of this hospital built on the soil

Of dead Indian chiefs buried deep

In the foggy trenches of medicine