Government Nouns
Needles
The mellow smells of blood, tangy, in boiling water, two
needles audibly clanging and stinging the sides of the saucepan. The neighbors
in a friendly huddle of comfortingly shared bread, fleas, sex, and needles. The
dog blending with the shaggy dust on the beer-sticky floorboards. A jenga-burst
of half empty soda cans in untaken-out tins.
“The heat kills the virus,” – Thea’s voice is reassuring. Her
grandfather was in Korea, vaccinating troops against the pox with his stainless
steel syringe. She dropped out of school to help him at the shop, her medical
degree earned through his stories of war, blown digits, and eyepatches.
A pair of gloves lie dead on the kitchen counter, which she
flaps and then blows into balloons with alien fingers, yellowed, and expertly
slips them on.
“Who’s next?”
Reed draws the shortest straw, as he sinks into the dusty
barcalounger, raises the sleeve of his Sunday church shirt, and Thea tips the
needle, expertly spattering the bubbles out. He exhales painless hope, as his
wife kisses his chapped lips, then cringes a little at his breath.
“Remember – take the test,” says Thea. “It’s the one thing
that you can get over the counter. The irony.”
“Oh and pray. Like our Governor.”
“Who’s next?”
Comments