Lost sight of the road, eyelids falling
two curtains to keep the sick & coughing
patients from touching my soul. I nearly
destroyed a little old man with the opening
of the ambulance door. Even under
the first-responder’s glare, I didn’t know
what was happening. After that, my partner
banned me from the driver’s seat. The fifth
time I went to bed that night, it was past 0400
exhausted but I still dreamt of the dead
girl, the ones who survived her to mourn, to
gather and cry; I always thought us like daisy chains
cut and bound together, so pretty, decomposing daily
I have been going back with each nap, to the sleepovers
where I never actually spent the night,
to oily cheeks, grinning teeth, and that campfire
how the conversation drifted from boys to pain
from pain to Ave—Ave, we called her like how
we named her sister Murph—because the “y”
would be too much, too much
like their mother’s arms around my shoulders
this woman I didn’t know
comforting even in her own sorrow
Just Thoughts 