On Visiting the Sexual Health Clinic before Work

Our neat nurse,
her shoes
like over-floured cakes,
separates us--
boy / girl.
We hold slips to say
we have been less
than careful.

What we hold back
is worth saying now:
this carelessness
had been our broken bread
some small hours before.

                     *

The waiting room’s light is:

                     dark honey mixed
                     into pasteurized cream.

              or
                     white fat
                     cut with vinegar. 

              or   (can we say it?)
                     both: The honey and vinegar,
                     the fat and the cream.
                     The cream, fat, vinegar,
                     and the honey, the honey,
                     the honey, the honey.

'On Visiting the Sexual Health Clinic Before Work' © Krystelle Bamford.  

---

Watch Kystelle Bamford read her work.