Caroline Szpak
Their Nurse
This won’t help her, her house
has a first aid kit too –
no simple pleasure, its clasps
hunched like waiting
insect legs, or flint.
Mostly she keeps expectations
alive. Mostly they’re frightened
as an empire and leave
their keys in the car, lock
injury away in a backseat.
She has her test tubes
because of the growths
of our spines, the red
colours of our buildings
that don’t burn. Mostly
she repeats after you,
murderous as a hearing aid.
Mostly they give reasons,
wait up for another
clustered duct she draws
out time with.
She lives here, like chocolate
on the corners of the mouth.
Some nights, she sleeps here,
picks and chooses, blinking
blinking if it kills her. Mostly,
she’s in the details,
facedown like blood.
Mostly they lie, nautical, facing
the wind. Mostly, it comes from her,
lying low as a slipmouth,
she gives them something
small enough for their hands
to sweat into. She’ll see them
when they get here.
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