The poem is a reminder of the fear that even relatively minor traumas or illnesses can bring--and a reminder to physicians of the baggage patients may carry with them into the doctor’s office or the hospital. What the physician may see as a discrete event may have an emotional context or resonance for the patient that may affect the healing process or the course of care. In this poem, the speaker’s ordinary day is disrupted by her sudden injury; she lays down but is afraid to sleep, unsure, as she imagines her dying father may have been, of "what kind of sleep" is "lulling" her, "the shallow or the deep?"