Waiting Room

In wheelchair he sits and reads the list

Of medications he takes;

Should Prednisone be listed because he only

Took it four days?

His wife, caregiver, or both sits beside

Him trying to pronounce each prescription.

She sits taut and ridged like the

Words she speaks;

Germanic or Swedish some

Language that’s hardly romantic.

Her son, definitely her son, sits beside her

Affirming roadblocks for each new drug.

A young woman sits there by the window holding

Her phone and talking;

She’s alone except for the voice on the phone

And the company of a cough.

She doesn’t seem to fit with the others though

She shares a sense of the same despair.

I sit and watch them all as they wait for the nurse

To call their name;

Wondering if this waiting is better because

It’s a first world waiting.

Bound to the others by common infirmity still

I bounce and dance out into the rain.