Waiting Room - Dec 11 2023

 

Waiting Room

Dec 11 2023

The waiting room

had an antiseptic smell,

bruised yellow paint,

and black vinyl chairs

with heavy steel frames

that had seen better days,

and clearly

weren't made for comfort.

People slouched, slept, paced.

Old magazines

were thumbed and thumbed again.

A vending machine

dispensed stale sandwiches

and over-priced snacks.

Occasionally

a brisk doctor

or sympathetic nurse appeared,

commiserating

or delivering updates.

A prognosis, perhaps , for anxious loved ones;

maybe how many years,

sometimes how many months.

Just as walls absorb smoke

   —   cigarettes, thick with tar

a cigar's heady smell   —

the paint and plaster soaked up stress.

The space

seemed charged with it;

accumulating over the years

from tense bodies and scattered minds

confined

to its over-heated air

and mean furnishings.

I was there most of the night

waiting;

a room

intended for just that.

But an afterthought, it seemed to me.

As if bad things never happen.

As if loved ones are a bother,

better off at home

waiting by the phone.

Before the new

state-of-the-art hospital.

Before the old General was torn down,

turned to rubble

in a vacant field

under a dusting of snow.

Before the yellow paint

and porous plaster

were carted-off and land-filled,

bulldozed under tons

of ripe and rotting garbage.

Interred

unceremoniously

with no mourners looking on.

But before that

had their moment in the sun;

a brief chance

to bask in fresh cleansing air

and feel spring come alive.