Thank you NR

A time in 2010
Teaching 7th graders
why their frontal cortex
will betray them
when drinking
Loudspeaker interruption
“please take a phone call in the nurse’s office”
Hi this is NYU hospital… your son wants admission.
we have questions.
yes he has been depressed before
yes he has been suicidal before
yes i am glad he spoke with you.
“please take another call in the nurse’s office”
I am still here
Hi this is the court clerk setting up an
arraignment as your son has been arrested.
yes he lives with me
yes please assign him a lawyer
yes i know he is considered an adult at 17.

Noooooooo i want to scream
back to back calls
back to back sons

my ribs cracking in the compression
of the space around me
seeking air.

A hand on my back
Nurse Rosemary says i got you
breathe

Bless school nurses

I start to choke
she gets me water
On that edge
of hysteria
balancing razor thin.

Someone cover my class
while i figure out how to parent.
Nurse Rosemary says
“good moms let their kids lick the beaters
great moms turn them off first”.

we dissolve in laughter,
the safer side
of the razor.