DAVID ANSON LEE

Shift Change

At dawn the ward hums: unfinished thought,
Fluorescent light on frailer, frailer skin.
The night’s last chart revised, the battles fought
On bleached white sheets where mercy might slip in.
A nurse bends close to hear a careful breath,
A cough that pushes back the dark unknown.
She maps the pain, resists its pull toward death,
Writes hope where fear has steadily grown.
Outside, slow bureaucracies still grind,
Thin compassion to approved degrees.
Inside, each pulse asserts its own demand.
A rhythm no ledger ever sees.
Still she remains, a light against delay,
Guiding the fragile body toward day.

The Bells Continue

Call it routine: the hollow, hallowed sound,
The beeps that stitch the pulse to waking hours.
They rise like tide, yet still the bells resound.

A doctor reads hope where fatigue is found,
Coffee gone cold in windowless towers.
Call it routine: the hollow, hallowed sound.

A secretary’s calm voice circles round,
Untangling codes where funding cowers.
They rise like tide, yet still the bells resound.

A nurse folds breath, one offering unbound,
In rooms where mercy weakens power.
Call it routine: the hollow, hallowed sound.

Charts stack like walls that hem the living down,
Consent reduced to lines that over-scour.
They rise like tide, yet still the bells resound.

Yet in their hands, the pulse breaks ground.
A fragile wing that lifts the hours.
Call it routine: the hollow, hallowed sound.
They rise like tide, yet still the bells resound.

David Anson Lee is a physician, philosopher, and poet whose work explores medicine, ethics, and the human cost of systems of care. His poems have appeared in numerous literary journals. He lives in Texas and continues to write at the intersection of clinical practice and lyric witness.

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