Nurse

Nurse

My mother went to work each day

in a starched white dress, shoes

damped to her feet like pale

mushrooms, two blue hearts pressed

into the sponge rubber soles.

When she came back home, her nylons

streaked with runs, a spatter

of blood across her bodice,

she sat at one end of the dinner table

and let us kids serve the spaghetti, sprinkle

the parmesan, cut the buttered loaf.

We poured black wine into the bell

of her glass as she unfastened

her burgundy hair, shook her head, and began.

And over the years we mastered it, how to listen

to stories of blocked intestines

while we twirled the pasta, of saws

teething cranium, drills boring holes in bone

as we crunched the crust of our sourdough,

carved the stems off our cauliflower.

We learned the importance of balance,

how an operation depends on

cooperation and a blend of skills,

the art of passing the salt

before it is asked for.

She taught us well, so that when Mary Ellen

ran the iron over her arm, no one wasted

a moment: My brother headed straight for the tee

Our little sister uncapped the salve.

And I dialed the number under Ambulance,

my stomach turning to the smell

of singed skin, already planning the evening

meal, the raw fish thawing in its wrapper,

a perfect wedge of flesh.