The medic lingers by his bed.
Her voice is contained in mics and whispered
by faulty headphones
Words are exchanged like fragile trinkets
does he notice
how she carefully keeps
their meanings unobscured?

Together
they sketch out the future like an idyllic landscape
rolling it out before their eyes,
their backs are turned to a blind one.

But her eyes snap awake to screaming shells,
soldiers rattling like corpses in their graves.
His protective grip
leads her out of the hospital through a mass
of 2D figures
like Moses through the Red Sea
but water isn’t meant to stand

their hands slip for an inert second
before he is lost from sight.

His name is swallowed by the milling panic as she
Dives for him, just as another
shell -

3
2
1

Respawn.