Hospital Waiting Area
John Reinhart
suited in blue, at work;
parents walk by, neck
muscles taut, moving too
quickly
and lost; a child
in a wheelchair without
hair, smiling shyly
at a Rube Goldberg
machine’s dutiful repetitions
no food before procedures,
in line at the cafeteria,
elevator
carries anxiety up a floor,
follow the signs, parking
garage, sign here, back
on schedule
“I like the part where the
ball
bounces into the basket –
it lands there every time”
balloons, schedules, locked
doors, floating through the labyrinth,
walls build one brick atop
a stone reminder – bluebells
blossoming another day
according to plan
Poet's Notes: When
we arrived at Children's Hospital, six-year-old Mattheus remarked that it
reminded him of Denver International Airport. That was just the parking garage.
We were both overwhelmed by the size and bustle of the main entrance - glass
elevator, Rube Goldberg machine, coffee shop, and hundreds of people, everyone
who helps make such an institution operate along with the myriad patients and
families. There's a little bit of Black Friday shopping mall or snapshot of a
futuristic society confined indoors. Distraction over comfort.
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