People Who Take Care

"People Who Take Care" by Nancy Henry from Hard.
© MuscleHead Press.

People who take care of people
get paid less than anybody
people who take care of people
are not worth much
except to people who are
sick, old, helpless, and poor
people who take care of people
are not important to most other people
are not respected by many other people
come and go without much fuss
unless they don’t show up
when needed
people who make more money
tell them what to do
never get shit on their hands
never mop vomit or wipe tears
don’t stand in danger
of having plates thrown at them
sharing every cold
observing agonies
they cannot tell at home
people who take care of people
have a secret
that sees them through the double shift
that moves with them from room to room
that keeps them on the floor
sometimes they fill a hollow
no one else can fill
sometimes through the shit
and blood and tears
they go to a beautiful place, somewhere
those clean important people
have never been.

Nancy Henry's poems have appeared in Three Candles, Tryst, Carnelian, Sidereality, Southern Humanities Review, Pedestal, Poetrybay, Poetry International, The Hollins Critic, The Café Review, Spoon River Poetry Review, Oxford Poetry, 5 AM, and many other publications in the US, UK and AU. She teaches English composition and literature at Southern Maine Community College. Nancy was a co-editor of the Maine poetry anthology A Sense of Place. Her chapbooks "Anything Can Happen" and "Hard" were published by MuscleHead Press. She's received four Pushcart Prize nominations and an Atlanta Review International Merit Award. Prior to teaching English, she was an attorney in the field of child protection.