Waiting

I spent the day in emergency with a raging skin rash that kept me from sleep for the last 36 hours. I kept getting bumped by the ambulance arrivals from accidents and heart attacks. I tried to be patient. It is a long holiday weekend which accounted for the high level of activity at the hospital .

I'm very impatient when every square inch of my skin is burning off and itching. There's a lot of waiting in our lives . As I sat there crossing and uncrossing my legs and trying not to scratch I remembered a poem I had written in a similar waiting experience this time for blood work. Needless to say art is not high on my priority list today. All energy goes toward not scratching and trying to keep my eyes open after doses of Benadryl. The sentence of possibly 6 weeks of this is daunting. Hopefully tomorrow will be better. It is a spring like day today with sun and a gentle breeze. That's uplifting.

Waiting

Sitting patiently,
staring at dirty gray tiles
lined up to show the way to numbers.
Black is the predominant colour,
smooth leather, scarred by salt,
an absence of laces,
strides determined
to quicken the pace of service.
White plastic bags
held protectively in clutched hands,
holding secrets.
The numbers move slowly,
36...., 37....., 38.
Feet that moved quickly and defiantly,
now shuffle, cross and uncross,
lie flat,
in the realization,
that we are just a number
you wait to be called.
to feel the prick of a needle, your reward.