You don’t remember me

I screamed up to your house throwing bottles and bags onto the bed

Hit your door at the fastest walk that wasn’t a run,

That “walk behind me, run beside me, or get the fuck out of my way” speed

Your son was standing in the doorway, the phone still clenched in his hand

I know what grief looks like

“which way?”

He pointed

In, left, bedroom on the right

There you were

My hand dug at your neck, I threw you onto the floor

Felt your chest give way under blow after blow from my arms

As one of my colleagues questioned your son in the next room

We drilled into your bone and shoved a tube in your mouth

Poured strange liquids into your veins

And hundreds of volts across your chest

I remember the arc, the acrid smell of burnt hair

We stopped

Looking at little green lines

Little black lines on pink paper

We strapped you down and threw you in the back of the truck

And ran like hell

It was touch and go there for a while

Your heart was beating, then it wasn’t

By now there weren’t any ribs left to break

As I beat on your chest

Pumping as much of your blood as I could

While we tried to jump-start your heart again

You got it together at the end

And were even starting to fight against the breathing tube

You don’t know how happy that made us

As we pulled into the hospital

Siren winding down and strobe lights still clicking

And handed you over to the docs

You could never pick out my face

But I remember you