Mother says it’s proper to bring beef broth,
jellies, and egg pudding to the sick in the village.
Florence should pray for the poor, but not give away
her own shawl or linger in a farmer’s cottage
to wipe feverish foreheads. Mother believes
Florence takes goodness too far.
God loves all people alike, she reads in the Bible,
but the history of England insists on differences.
Florence tends to sick babies of families who live
in homes smaller than any of the fifteen bedrooms
in the Nightingale manor. She steps back out
into air scented with wild roses.
Chickens cluck as a rooster struts, flings back
his head so sunlight strikes the red coxcomb.