After Saving a Life, John Timpane (September 2026)

After Saving a Life

I always thought I’d mess it up.
Some part of me believes I did.
“The game,” they say in baseball, “will
Come round to you. Be ready.” I
Was not, was taking out the trash –
“José. Hello.” I waved. But he
Did not wave back. He always does.
I stepped across the street as at
Some signal, and I guess it was:
Hands at his face, in the wrong yard.
His next word – “Sangre” – made me swim,
Feel for bottom and find none.
His dishcloth, carmine, fell to show
A face of blood; two blood streams fell
Thick, unbroken, from nose to earth.
From then on not myself, I took
His elbow, found the bloody tracks
Across his doorway, up the stairs.
The kitchen looked as if a birth
Had happened everywhere. “José,
Put pressure on. Don’t stop. Your head …
Tilt back … and spit, don’t swallow.” He’d
Tried to find help. No-one around.
“How long?” I shouted. Eighty, he
Said, “Una hora, más o menos.”
I could have panicked, maybe did.
The phone was dancing in my hands
Slick from the blood. A voice said, “What
Is your emergency?” I was
Afraid of hemorrhage, of time.
The hook-and-ladder came, then cops,
Then medics – then I saw his Sally
Stumble out her driver’s door
Already frantic at the lights.
I held her, whispered, walked her in.
They worked hard at the hospital.
They burned his nostrils, changed his meds.
I’ve heard from doctor friends that I …
Forget it. Nothing feels the way
You’d think. Shock takes the form of dream:
I am a winter, covered in
His life, and in that other where,
I am not there, I or the trash,
While José wanders house to house
Until all wandering ceases. In
That world where worst plays out its end,
José lies still, the game comes round
To me, and blood and time run out.