Hubris
======

* Richard Bronson

![Figure1](http://www.cmaj.ca/https://www.cmaj.ca/content/cmaj/183/8/E502/F1.medium.gif)

[Figure1](http://www.cmaj.ca/content/183/8/E502/F1)

Image courtesy of © 2011 Jupiterimages Corp.

*For Charles Bailey*

> I saw your picture in the paper the other day —
> 
> you, who held my heart in your hands.
> 
> Overworked, beat by beat, it pumped
> 
> my blood through a narrowing passage

> ravaged by rheumatic fever,
> 
> sending its strident cry that students came to hear.
> 
> Then you proposed a cure
> 
> to spread open my chest,

> place a finger inside my beating heart,
> 
> break through the damaged valve.
> 
> You had practised on dogs, you said,
> 
> but didn’t say none survived.

> I’ve heard you booked two cases
> 
> same day, in different places;
> 
> had a taxi waiting
> 
> to take you cross town, try again,

> should you at first not succeed.
> 
> I can see you running through the hallways,
> 
> your white coat over bloodied scrubs,
> 
> slamming the door of the waiting cab.

> Then you were off, racing
> 
> through back streets of Philadelphia,
> 
> toward Episcopal Hospital, where I lay waiting —
> 
> innocent of that death and full of hope.