Waiting

(I was pretty sick this spring, and this is one of the pieces I wrote while in and out of the hospitals)



Waiting


I’m sitting in this little exam room.
Or maybe it’s a changing room.
A curtain divides me from the other side of the room.
There is an old man. I can just see his shoe.
It’s black. Velcro straps.
He is talking incessantly.
Nerves.
Fear
Loneliness.
I’m not sure.
The nurse listens and feints interest.
I can hear it in her replies.
The old man is religious,
Or keeps relaying little quips about god.
Jokes maybe.
Parables.
He is catholic.
He says Jew.
A lot.
Discusses jews he knows.
Friends who are jews.
there is something in the way he lets the word jew
fall off his lips.
It’s confused with hatred and friendship.
There is no malice.
The nurse helps him undress.
He demands she not rumple his pants
He demands she pull them from the cuffs.
This pleases him.
The nurse helps him into the hall
And onto a gurney.
I sit and stare at the curtain.
Waiting.

chris d.