Under The Knife

The obstacle is the knife. And the surgical mask. And the latex gloves. And the scrubs.

It's the nurses' anxious eyes, the patient's pale skin, and the rhythmic blips of the heart monitor.

It's the medical journals, the notes from the conference in Tokyo last fall, the lessons forgotten from medical school. It's the remembering and the forgetting, and the worry that I might forget or not remember again.

It's the acknowledging. It's appreciating the phrase, "It wasn't your fault." It's understanding, "It could have been any of us."

It's keeping my breathing even, steadying my hands.

It's scrubbing down, snapping on, stepping into, reviewing, peering over. It's reviewing again, assessing, re-evaluating, assessing, re-evaluating, assessing, re-evaluating.

It's angling the light. It's taking the knife and making the first incision along the same line as the last one--who's not yet cold in the morgue under my feet.