Jen Karetnick
NOCTURNE WITH NEEDLE
Sewn to the backdrop of dusk, a shy smile of moon dangles
by tackings of clouds. A few stars dimple, appliqued as if by
hand. But never mind this amateurish set, designed to distract.
A king tide laps at the toes of healthcare givers, each wave like a
curtain spaced six feet apart. Only children breach the interstices.
I sometimes forget how we have come to this, it’s been that
long. Instead my ancestral memory throws up scenes of being sent
to the bread lines, the train lines, the bath lines. It says I am far too
close, even though I am hundreds away, to this experiment. I will offer
my arm anyway. A doctor once told me a needle should never enter
crooked, with a stabbing motion, but instead be leveled straight as a
face so that the muscle isn’t sore and deadened afterward. So much
hangs here in this wait time to embroider all kinds of links and chains
on my imagination. As each patient is disappeared behind a makeshift
screen, I plunge behind like an emptying syringe, skew-whiff, out of true.