An agency in Manchester writes the page. The doctor reads it between patients and screenings, and fixes the name of the procedure.
“Extremely excited to show you what we have come up with,” says the web developer.
“We love it. Let’s make the second paragraph a bit warmer,” says the marketing manager, in a meeting room in Dubai.
It gets warmer.
She finds the page, finds it at 10 to 1 in the morning, in Riyadh. She keeps the brightness as low as it goes. She doesn’t want to wake her husband.
DING
A chat window slides up. “Hi there! How can we help?”
The procedure is at 8. She scrolls past the welcome and the line about compassionate care. She is looking for one sentence, whether she’ll be awake.
Nobody at the agency, and nobody in that room, reads it the way she reads it.
I wrote these lines about a different job. They’re in my book of poems, The Maths of Mercy.
I write words meant to steady someone.
Words that hold their shape.
Words that sound like help.
I can’t remember
the last time I felt helped.