Ambullience

It's red lights' throbbing glow
soaked into a bandaged night
as I spied
through two frames
the face of a woman faintly
pushing fog against the pane
of her mask.

Her breath flowed in waves,
blossomed like frost,
as her eyes, bobbled
to each spoken statistic
which hovered,
ephemeral and lucid,
in an ever-expanding haze.

I followed them for some time
through a neighborhood
shaped like a grate
till we reached a small embankment
and, with the utmost reverence,
they lowered her into the numbing arms
of the river, lighting the stretcher on fire.
It burned like a hearth.

I knelt in the tire tracks,
back to the flames,
and tried to make out shapes
in my billowing words.