White Coat at Dawn/White Coat at Dusk

By David Anson Lee

At dawn, I press my palms to cold glass,

watching the corridor stretch like an empty sky.

Charts flutter: life, pulse, breath;

each tick of the clock heavier than the night.

Hands scrubbed raw, mind sharpened by a thousand cases,

fatigue leans in,

a shadow at the edges of vision.

I move from room to room,

bearing witness to fragile bodies

and stubborn hope,

the weight of trust folded

between prescriptions and whispered prayers.

By dusk, sunlight spills across the floor

like slow amber.

I remove the coat.

The corridor exhales behind me.

In this quiet, I am both healer

and healed,

seeing what it means

to live and endure.

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David Anson Lee is a physician and poet based in Texas, whose work weaves together medicine, philosophy, and Native American heritage. Born on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, he explores identity, memory, mortality, and the human condition through a lens shaped by both clinical practice and philosophical inquiry. His poetry has appeared in journals including Right Hand Pointing, Unbroken Journal, The Scarred Tree, and Braided Way.