A woman full of unthinkable thoughts makes her way home.
She shrugs off her coat, her gloves, her calamitous pocketbook.
Each laid to rest on her bedside table in her careful bedside manner.
From left to right.
The lamp with an eco-friendly bulb is flicked on.
She puts down the stethoscope.
The pager.
The phone.
Their screens electric blue in the dark.
She tucks the list of names into the drawer.
She puts downs the list of calls to make, tests to order, labs to take.
She puts down the list of things to check,
And check again,
And to recheck then.
She puts down their family’s pleas, their heavy hopes that don’t agree.
She puts down a wineglass into well-worn wooden rings.
She puts down the clean scent and human stench.
She puts down the caresses of skinny hands and careless clasping fingers.
She crawls under her crisp white covers.
The silence settles over her. The absence of the tinkering, the mumbling, the coming and going of life and of death.
The light flicks off. The table creaks. The heart beats.
It beats and beats.
It keeps the time for the lists, for the names, for faces for whom the bells will toll in her sleep.
At last, she is put upon by sleep.

(“For whom the bell tolls” quoted from Ernest Hemingway)