BLACK BILE | Salem Harry-Hernandez

Black bile
spattered my gloves,
seeped through the gown,
burned the air—acid and iron.

Each compression
wrung more of it from you—
a wet gasp,
a hiss of suction,
monitors choking on alarms.

My hands knew:
we were dismantling you—
vertebrae collapsing,
organs unmoored,
forcing breath
into a room already emptied of it.

Then your mother’s scream—
not human, not animal,
grief torn loose from language—
a pitch so clean
it cracked the glass
and still hums in my chest
when the hall goes quiet.

When the monitor flatlined,
the silence was heavier.

Later,
I scrubbed until hot water blistered my skin.
The water ran black.

Salem Harry-Hernandez is a physician and writer whose work explores the emotional residue of medical training, grief and care at the bedside. His writing is informed by his clinical work in critical care medicine and his interest in narrative medicine and medical humanities. He lives and works in the northeastern United States.

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