Marketable Skills by Marina Sofia

Now I am naturalized and marketable, 

my brain useful my forearms strong.

I gleam squeaky-clean from scrubbing hospital floors.

You can forgive my skin the colour

of midnight plums at least temporarily

when I apply gauze to your suppuration

you wince avoid my eyes

when I empty your bedpan tell me to cheer up

when you make a joke about my ancestors.

My scissors not nearly as sharp as your corrections

of my grammarly faults. I am dizzy

tolerated, jostled kept on

until something better home-grown

comes along.

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Marina Sofia is a translator, reviewer, writer and blogger. She is also a global nomad, which sounds much better than 'immigrant'. She has published poetry and flash fiction in a few online and print journals, and thinks poetry is the best way to procrastinate when she should be working on her crime novel.