Afflicted
Kristin Laurel
It is the night shift, and most of Minneapolis does not know
that tonight a drunk man rolled onto the broken ice
and fell through the Mississippi.
He lies sheltered and warm in the morgue, unidentified.
Behind a dumpster by the Metrodomea
mother blows smoke up to the stars
;she flicks sparks with a lighter
and inside her pipe, a rock of crack glows
before it crumbles into ash
1and is taken by the wind.
Another mother waits up for her son;
he was shot in the chest, then pushed out of a fleeing car.
He bleeds on black pavement, exhaust fumes hover over him.
Through the back doors of the ER
medics dump off the indigentand
black-booted cops track in salt and sand.
We are all misplaced.
An Indian braveis just plain drunk
;the white paint on his cheeks and noseis
from huffing paint.
He is snoring off his stupor
from drinking bottles of Listerine
(the poor man's liquor).
It's so easy to judge
but we are all broken, in one way or another
;The officer was just trying to clean up the streets
keep his back seat sanitary
when he picked up another filthy drunk
and shoved him into the trunk of his squad car.
The young nurse was conned
into being callous
;It only took being spit at, being called a bitch
and one punch to the face, to learn to be gruff
and keep them all cuffed to the bed
:She takes off soiled jeans
,uncovers scraps of a shredded newspaper
the homeless man's underpants (pissed-on words)
.A grimy, tattered shirt is stuck to his chest
,she peels it off, holding her breath, while
flakes of dead skin detach into the air.
In one more hour it will be daybreak.
She will go home to her clean house,
her white down comforter on a pillow-topped bed.
But, she knows,
there is an affliction in the air.
Even the snowflakes fall like ash
She washes her hands.