In The Doctor's Waiting Room

In The Doctor's Waiting Room

" as if she had discovered

the train was bound somewhere;

as if the conductor

had told everyone on board

they never had to bear the weight

of being strong again."

from" Medicine"

by Tony Hoagland

It is like being in a railway

station, suddenly amnesic, unsure I have

arrived or embarking on a new journey.

On the wall a clock

that keeps station time, brusque hands

flagging away the hours, the minutes,

the seconds.

The patients are like

passengers, shoulders drooping from the weight

of excess luggage, an overnight bag

of lost dreams, a suitcase full

of travellers' vertigo, a trunk bulging

with memory aids and a map

showing roads of varicosities running

from volcanic ankles to Mt. Fuji knees.

Nearby the dispensary, where patients purchase

tickets, Anti-Histamines for a cold trip,

Anti-Hypertensives to high pressure destinations, Valium

to Nirvana, Cytotoxics to the Middle-East

of a malignant continent.

But what of my own

journey? Will it be like

the sleepers running until

the South tracks meet the North

station? Or will there be a

whiplash braking, a molten steel screeching

as wheels burn rails, a shearing

of the flesh of my dreams

from the bones of my sleep-walking

and two slippers, strewn on sleepers

announce my arrival at the station

where the

parallel lines

finally

m

e

e

t

?