NURSE SHIRLEY

It must have been ten years ago, but still
The memory remains as warm and fresh
Today as then. I’d felt a bit depressed
At being twenty-eight and ’over the hill”.

The patient they assigned me was the same
Age as I was. The double twenty-eight
Was bonding. Soon I was pleased to carry her weight
From bed to commode. The heft of her body became

A healing blessing–I the foster-mother
She the baby, and I was the baby too–
The holding, the being held, the old and new
Together, the primal gift to one another.

She didn’t live much longer, but her bequest
Has stayed with me: her weight, her touch, her rest.

(136, November 9, 1993)

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