What Can You Nurse? Poem by Mark Heathcote

What can you nurse?
Contrite is his heart
It's as penitent as a ghost
Without any chains
he's as humble as a child
who lost his way
but now feels found
and is warming his toes at home.

What can you nurse?
When his manger-is-outgrown
And he's truly remorseful
Of any isolation
That led him slightly astray
Turned his head the wrong way
Immobilised his heart
Filled his sapphire eyes
With tears of forgotten love.

What can you nurse?
If he hasn't been led astray
If he hasn't fallen
Come a cropper in someway
If he hasn't been a lost little lamb
If he hasn't faltered from the path
Surely there isn't such a man
It's just his ego
He-really-thinks he's Peter Pan
And he enjoys skating on thin ice
To laughter poking fun at the universe
The struggles of a hapless man.

Oh, his poor wife
What can you nurse?
Do you have brown paper and vinegar?
Can you suture a knee?
And wipe tears away that evaporate into nothingness
Oh, his poor wife
What can you nurse?
When all he wants is for you not to be terse
Because he doesn't need a mother or a nurse
He needs you to take away his pain
Separation he can't weld or solder.