NaWUPoBo, #19
I am not sure where the motivation of this poem came from. I think I found the French phrase first and thought about how I could put it into a poem. Shelby warns me that dropping foreign phrases and words into poetry is a bit posh, especially if the reader has no idea what you are saying. But I think the meaning here is rather clear. I don't know, perhaps it is OK not to be able to follow the multi-layered patterns of thought and musing that led me to where I could type it up onto the blog for you. Perhaps.
I am not sure who started the rumor
of rife and unruly libidinousness
among nurses. An ex-candy striper,
perhaps, working nights on the syphilis
ward? Not in a rest home, that is for sure.
In the films nurses all have thick Euro
accents, "le sexe j'adore," and the cure
for what ails you is not what my fellow
nurses give out. We tend to be hardened,
battle-tired; coming off shift with other
people's feces on our scrubs, backs stiffened
with pain, fatigued. This is not a glamor
job, we are not glamor nurses. Maybe
that is the truth, we survive but barely.