Shadows at first, blurred voices saying my name,
calling 911, an ambulance, I have fallen,
fallen out of the day, out of the familiar

into the world of blur and shadows, voices expecting
answers, I have none or few, my name, birth date,
the ambulance wants to know the day, the year,

the E.R. asks the same and what I was doing when
I fell; things try to sort themselves out, hook me up,
fluids in, out, blood pressure over and over, an electronic

this or that, my heart, the odd sounds it makes, they make
discussing me and what I have become, one of the fallen
who needs to be explained – it went on for hours, vague hours,

days in the hospital, in rehab, I became strange, living a gap,
a bad dream, a story someone else has written, telling of
fallen angels to this fallen beast, the broken machine
I became.