The Nurse
Sitting at the bar with a twenty-something
who gave up firefighting to become a nurse.
He wants to save people in a different way.
He vice-grips my hand rather than shaking it,
the way some young men are taught to do
so everyone knows: No Funny Business Here.
Today he put a catheter into a man
whose midsection was swollen with urine.
He said the man’s face changed in an instant,
and he asked my new friend for his name
so he could thank him properly.
How powerful to take away a stranger’s pain.
4 December 2012
Auburn, AL
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