Vocational Training by Carrie Shipers

我听起来那么像我妈妈
当人们向我们的家人求助时，
我就不得不中途阻止他们打住。
等一下，我会说，我不是她。
而我和她继续电话聊着，我在门道里
徘徊，拿着她的设备，看着
她直奔有什么问题吗的中心
我知道我能记住事实，刨析，
提供氧气或休克的数学，
但我需要她教给我身体想要什么。
我学到的都是常识：
按压止血。尽量如你一样保持镇定。
我永远不会拥有她的双手，
我见她运用的力量，但有时
我感觉到她的声音在我嘴里：那些冰来
你会没事的。它不需要缝针，
那只手一个小擦伤。即使我就是那个
讲话的人，我妈妈的嗓音也知道如何做。
I sound so much like my mother
that when people called our house for help,
I’d have to stop them halfway through
their stories. Hold on, I’d say, I’m not her.
When I went with her on calls, I hovered
in doorways, holding her equipment, watched
her walk to the center of what was wrong.
I knew I could memorize facts, anatomy,
the math of giving oxygen or shock,
but I needed her to teach me what the body
wanted. What I learned was common sense:
Apply pressure to bleeding. Stay as calm
as you can. I’ll never have her hands,
the power I saw her wield, but sometimes
I feel her voice in my mouth: Get some ice
and you’ll be fine. It doesn’t need stitches,
it’s only a scratch. Even when I’m the one
speaking, my mother’s voice knows what to do.
“Vocational Training” by Carrie Shipers from Family Resemblances. © University of New Mexico Press, 2016. Reprinted with permission
It's the birthday of poet Gary Soto , born in Fresno, California (1952). He worked as a farm laborer and in factories while he was in high school, and he was a terrible student, but he said that he was already "thinking like a poet." He has written more than 50 books of prose and poetry for children and adults. His New and Selected Poems (1995) was a finalist for the National Book Award. He wrote:
    They say you have a tattoo of a butterfly
    On your thigh, but how will I know?
    That you can uncurl cigarette smoke at will,
    That you can cuss in six languages,
    That your last boyfriend is using a whole box
    Of Kleenex to wipe away his river of tears.
    These are rumors, just rumors.
    But I can see.