Newport Memorial
Work was fine until the sixteenth of August—
finding myself down in the cafeteria,
sopping up a bladder bag on the night shift.
Cold air brewed on the silent fryers.
She stood behind the counter.
Sad-eyed weeping—
her moan tore through me,
heart exploding beat after beat
as she wailed for another dead patient.
I couldn’t move, boots treading
two shades of gold.
I’d heard she was a nurse;
I’d heard she died in labor;
I even heard she groped
one of the 1st shift janitors
and left him blue-balled for a week.
None of it prepared me
to see through her, though,
the pots clanging above her gray presence.
Her black hair had been cropped close,
cobalt eyes and pale lips
that trembled in the transparency.
Baby boy blue dress—
the smell of baked apples that beat away
the putrid scent of Newport Memorial—
the banshee voice shrieking
like my ex-wife’s years ago.
The second the shock unwound
and she glared through me,
I backed away,
sliding in the cold urine,
slipping from the increasing shriek
of hell in all her tiny form.
I grabbed my troublesome balls,
the ones that begged
the chase of a sure fling
into the night shift forever ago,
and never looked back
to see if she smiled.
