They surge through the unit doors,
fresh and rested and ready to get report,
this night brigade in teddy bear scrubs
and orthopedic shoes. Leaning over cribs
or peeking into isolettes, they greet
their tiny patients with tuneful coos.
Hello Noah, Hello Sophie, Aaron and Ally.

Roaming stethoscopes over bellies and chests,
listening to lungs, hearts, and bowels,
each nurse performs her evening cares –
pinching feet to count capillary refill,
pumping up miniature blood pressure cuffs.

On bath night they fill the plastic basins
with lavender-scented suds to dip and slosh
their cloths to wetly caress infant-skin.
After some gentle dabs of the towel,
they suspend the babies in gloved palms
and place them on hopeful scales,
then return them squirming back
to laundered sheets and in warm onesies.

Lights dim until only the blue stars glow.
After one last kiss, parents drift reluctantly
home. All calms to ventilator hum
and med pump beep, and from another
bedspace, a Tagalog lullaby carries.
Good night Eli and Ava. Sweet dreams, Josue.

The white coats make their nightly rounds,
then retreat to the call room to rest.
These are the spirit hours sifting toward dawn,
As the night shift charts, soothes, and feeds.
Mamas up to pump call to check on their babes,
no detail too little to tell, ever grateful
to those who watch over the little souls’ sleep.   

Amy Fleury is the author of two collections of poems, Beautiful Trouble and Sympathetic Magic and a chapbook, Reliquaries of the Lesser Saints. A native of Kansas, she now lives in Eau Claire and is a lecturer in the English department at UW-Claire.