Poetry | April 22, 2026
4 Poems by Alissa M. Barr
Alissa M. Barr
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.
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