Crisis Intervention

They warehoused the girls on the left side
of the third floor, behind robotic glass doors.
They took their pressures, calculated their
imbalances and stripped their running shoes
away. They provided them a shower with no
head, nontoxic soaps, rubber sheets, blankets
folded into pillowcases on which to lay their tired
brains, a stack of yellow-paged romance novels,
regular drugs, tabloid TV, a comfy brown couch
and popcorn with grape Kool-Aid at night.

They made them eat.

They made them walk in line like schoolchildren
to beg their cold nourishment three times daily,
no exceptions—meals splashed dismissive on the
plaintive trays they held in front of them, humbly,
between their bandaged arms.

Then back behind the glass doors, three times
daily, no exceptions, in single file, bellies still
half empty, shuffling and silent
                                    like dolls on tracks.


-M.