by m.l. Bach

A row of sentinel nurses
stand with their feet crossed,
three in a line and my mother

across from them, leaning against
the plastic siding of the outdoor
hallway between the care home

and its garage. They share
cigarettes my mother’s only
moments of intimacy with other

women, trading Marlboros for
Newports in a round like a tasting,
brushing fingers on the hand-offs,

their mouths kissing each other
with one degree of separation:
the smoke and her mouth,

the smoke in her mouth—she
looks away, above the high hair
buns in yellows and browns,

and she sees before she hears:
a line of crows perched, angled
on the gutter above all their heads

eyeing up the burning cherries
between the nurses’ shaded lips
with their beaks open and their little

tongues curled back in eerie silence.
Their heads move to see her looking,
take in her polo and her jeans,

her keyring clipped to her belt loop;
their beaded eyes lock with hers,
and they start to scream.

m.l. Bach is a poet from Pittsburgh who was raised inside a personal care home named after a boat. They earned an MFA in Poetry from the University of South Carolina in 2025. Before their MFA, they completed a writing residency at Burren College of Art in Ballyvaughan, Ireland, where they trekked the Wood Loop maybe a million times. Their poetry has appeared in Ninth Letter, Paper Dragon, Denver Quarterly, and elsewhere.