Boil water advisory
floating organisms
creeping into wounds.
Dangerous spread
drifts in blood,
cells taken hostage,
skin slowly turns
green
yellow
red
green.
Watery
Purified
not so
in dirty pot
must boil.
Be sure
rolling wait;
drinkable
cooled down.
Allies
Weekend night
infection again,
Nurses gone.
Mentor offers
leftover med stash.
and off I crawl.
Nicolette Westfall wrote poetry while living on an isolated northern Canadian First Nation reservation. She recently published poetry in Binnacle.
