Closed like confessionals, ambulances weave through the city. One of them might come to rest anywhere. When that happens, the onlookers momentarily see "a wild white face that overtops / Red stretcher blankets" as the patient is taken into the ambulance.

Suddenly, just for a moment, they "sense the solving emptiness / That lies just under all we do." The onlookers whisper in distress. But the ambulance moves on, the traffic parts to let it by, and "dulls to distance all we are." [30 lines]