Poetry | April 22, 2026

Instructions Withheld from a Nursing School Syllabus 

Start training your bladder now. Never get caught
with your pants around your ankles when a patient

is crumping. Learn your ABCs: airway, circulation,
breathing. When you’re running a code blue, no one

will notice your hands shaking, and you can breathe
through almost anything. Never wear a stethoscope

slung like a garotte around your neck. Someone will
interpret this as an invitation. Remain vigilant around

swinging fists and feet. Pay attention. The velocity
of spit and urine will surprise you. Pack protein bars

to replace lunch breaks you won’t take. CYA: cover
your ass. Document everything. Murder your ego.

Fuckups will happen. Ensure yours aren’t terminal.
Learn how to recognize the masks of death: clusters

of mottled skin like storm clouds covering each
extremity or how the death rattle sounds less

percussive and more like drowning. And when you find
yourself caring for your third guppy-breathing teen

overdose case this week, cataloging each textbook sign
of a hypoxic brain injury, know that you are standing

on the edge of language, where his mother won’t recall
the words you used to break this truth: some injuries

go unrecovered. Instead, she’ll memorize the gentle
movement of your hands straightening bedsheets

and smoothing damp hair away from his face, as silence
fills her ears, like being thrust underwater, her world

muted by his syncopated breath. Understand witnessing
as a kind of devotion. You must record what others ignore,

like watching the sun rise over the helipad. For a moment,
there’s no emergency on the horizon, just the clipped

quiet of your breath punctuating cold air like ellipses,
where this secondhand grief eclipses everything.