Poetry
Hospital Corners
Bethany Reid
I must have read the words in a book.
Mom had never heard them. “Oh, for
heaven’s sake,” she said, “just make the bed.”
Hospital Corners sounded better
than how I’d been taught, first to tuck
the sheet’s end under the mattress, then the flap
at each side, just that, while Hospital
Corners sounded ordered.Nurses
in crisp white uniforms and starched hats
that looked like wings, wounded soldiers
leaning forward from white pillows
for sips of water, cool hands on hot
foreheads and maybe a kiss
pressed there, chaste ghost of emotion,
and soothing words, too,
cool, drinkable words, like words in books.