it’s her first day on the job
gotta put on her big girl pants
gotta grab the important papers
six years of nursing school
her friends graduated after three
it was long and hard but
look at her! off to her first job,
nurse for the kids at the homeless shelter
“ghetto”, her sister said
she decided she’d risk it
stepped out of the maserati
holding her fat prada purse
she preens and tosses her
bottle blonde locks
steps into her new office
cramped, but it’ll do
she feels ready for anything
a naked infant, all skin and bones
his ribs are shaking with the effort
of supporting his fragile body
his precious vessel; reduced to a squirming
it
she holds
it
as far from her as
humanly possible; is
it
human?
is this what
malnourishment does to a child?
it’s so small
it
could rest in the palm
of her hand
she is disgusted
the child squats a ways away from her desk
it
scurries to the other side of the room
when the bejeweled
woman with the
yellow yellow hair approaches
it
flinches when the
strange lady in the white white pantsuit
reaches a
tan tan
hand covered in rings towards her
“abuse”, they said
“starved”, they murmured
shaking their sheltered heads
she stares at the small child
scarred from years of unimaginable pain and
she lifts the girl’s shirt
sees the cuts from the broken bottles
the bruises from the intoxicated fists
the child’s eyes well up into tears and
a small sapling of
something
sprouts in the barren wasteland of
“it’s not my problem”
she looks at the girl’s too big pants
more patches than denim
she observes the girl’s too small shirt
years of wear
reduced to nothingness
she stares at the girl’s toothpick legs
pale as the moon
marred with
day-old
week-old
year-old bruises
she glances at the girl’s matted hair
hasn’t seen a caress
from a loving hand
since ever
she feels something in that nothing
something more than pity
or condescending
she understands
what she did not understand before
these “it”s
these aliens in her perfect world
they matter.