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Nurse

your wrinkled eyelids folded and folded upon / opening fields where I grow

Poetry | Nurse, mother, son
June 2, 2021

Editor’s Note: The following poem by Jack Jung is part of a notebook of writing on the theme Nurse. Read other pieces in the collection gathered here.

The way home from work, covered
in wintry muddy slush, is your familiar trudge,

and aging takes care of the sick,
hanging on by bills and insurance.

Past dignity. The faith for your son is your
strong liquid fuel; crossing the bridge over the river’s

frozen water, I said, only if you were here
earlier, there was a feather cloud sunset, a wax spilling

fire of it, like the end of the world,
like the cities when the film credits roll, and

your wrinkled eyelids folded and folded upon
opening fields where I grow. You said,

It is still so beautiful to look at—
breathlessly beaming at its fair shade of grape.

The long shift is done for the day,
and the night comes.

Walking all the way home to forget the dying
to not die,

You know a beaked mouth that relentlessly opens
to the flutter of your coat.