Describe it simply as a lovers' quarrel after which she slashed her wrist and sought medical attention.

A superficial laceration over the right wrist. No active bleeding. Clean the area with antiseptic and pick away the dried clot. Tidy tidy.

A scratch on the skin parallels the main cut: presumably an initial tentative testing of the flesh. Don't look here for the confident opening incision of a surgeon amputating a limb. Instead, observe the hesitant and unsuccessful pruning of the hand that caresses.

What is a doctor to do? So late at night. First of all, be gentle with the tissues.

Restore the natural anatomy With a close approximation of the skin edges. Use a small needle. Minimize the small talk.

‘You are very brave,’ she says when we're finished. I don't argue. It's too early in the morning to start another lovers' quarrel.

Vincent Hanlon studied English literature and later medicine at University of Calgary. He is an emergency physician at Fort McMurray, Alberta. This poem is from The Naked Physician: Poems about the Lives of Patients and Doctors, edited by R. Charach (Quarry Press). Reprinted with kind permission of the author.