The Nurse with White Hair and Her Slow Poisons

The Nurse with White Hair and Her Slow Poisons · Christine Zawadiwsky How dead white the moon is and I can't dream about the two accidents I've encountered, heartsick, or about the blizzard inside the glass paperweight, or about a bowl of scissors or those nurses who use gauze to keep a wound open, as I do with you. Those slow poisons are working those disembodied words, and though you've held me tight all night how dead white the moon is, I can't sleep, I can't dream. In the bakery there sits a dreamy child pretending to eat the moon like a wafer, wearing a ribbon of snow in her hair, licking those slow and sugary poisons, your words, like a birthday-cake inscription or the words from a dream or a slow-moving movie, I'm that child, you're here. And the nurses who use gauze roll down a hill for their Savior and I make the stations of the cross outside a church this time around and contemplate my wrists and those scissors. I knew an old man who was a knife sharpener, he told me about those invisible thrills when I still lived in a palace of words that sent no messages, threw no arrows, had no barbs. Two accidents, one was me, one was you, and I tumbled down that hill, and I panicked, I just panicked, and you hid in the closet, then held me tight all night, and inside the glass paperweight it snowed and snowed. Now I can't sleep and I can't dream THEMISSOURIREVIEW ¦ 23 and the poisons drain down through the stars in the sky and our words eat the night away and in the morning a rose six feet tall stands at the foot of my bed and replaces the moon. Breathing, breathing, I'm a dreamy child counting my delusions as the cherry sinks to the bottom of my glass bowl and the goldfish finds no place to hide, no palace, no words, we're all asking for the same doll to sleep with as the poisons roll down our throats till we're all lost. I knew an old nurse who carved away everyone's dead skin and never saw the moon and wore a bonnet of ice and sharpened scissors in tune to the beat of her heart. Now the night is mumbling and how dead white the moon as it's struck by an arrow, an accident, how dead white your hand and how cold is this room, hold me tight through the night, let your words work their poisons and I'll sit in the bakery dreaming sad tunes, and I'll sleep and I'll weep for the nurse with white hair. 24 ¦ THEMISSOURIREVIEW Christine Zawadiwsky ...