You can keep your Staph
to yourself. I can help you
only with your pronouns.
Here. You sit there.
I. I will stand there.
II. or here.
III. If you sit on the desk.
A. I
cannot warm you.
B. but
I can toast you
1. and possibly buckle you.
2. It is not my job
3. to hand out silicon,
4. Kleenex or
5. scrips for easing
6. flight anxiety.
IV. But if you sit here
V. or stand against the wall
VI. then the you that flexed and brayed
A. can
be the me
B. that
big and bucked
C. the
exchange takes more than citrus
D. more
than a collapse of lung
1. More
than salt
2. More
than boiled lance
3. More
than lanced boil.
4. More
than tomato salad
VII. What you eat
VIII. becomes you
IX. which is not to say
X. I’ll give you that medicine
XI. you claimed you were looking for.
XII. But you will rest better at night
A. dreaming
not of white scab
B. or
yellow sleep
C. but
of the beauty you found
1. at
the turn
2. of
the wheel
3. on
the office chair
a. that
slipped over
b. your
skirt
c. and
tugged on that
d. recipe
you call paper.
Nicole Walker’s work
has appeared in Ploughshares, Shenandoah, Bellingham Review, Fence,
Seneca Review, Iowa Review, Fourth Genre, Ninth Letter, and
crazyhorse, among other journals. A recent NEA grant recipient, she teaches creative writing
at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
