cold feet and ill-fitting gowns…

tie in the front or the back?

bee beep… bee beep…bee beep….

“Is this a room in which many have died?”

“No- that’s in rooms four and five…right down the hall….”

“Oh, I remember….”

I think, “They’re called ‘swingrooms’ because they swing into the morgue.”

I travelled down that corrider once- a mistake-

walking away from my dying father. A misstep.

naked and unfamiliar with this corridor with no paintings by those in the psychiatry ward-

no artificial flower arrangements. No hospital magazines.

(God forbid they should have an Enquirer)

Yes, I was on my way to the morgue. Someone had left the door unlatched.

At worst, stretcher would come by and direct me out.

Yellow light, yellow glazed walls…..

then back to bay 23

and my needles.

“I’m missing Nip/Tuck,”  I complain.

(laughter)

I wait one hour, two, three….

bee beeep…bee beeep…bee beeep.

A woman next door cries like a child.

Weeping women and toddlers work their way to the death rooms.

A woman, white as grey snow, is wheeled into one of those.

I sit on the bed and swing my leg,

analyzing the saline drip and

writing mental stories about the late night shift.

I want to go home

have Chinese leftovers

a beer

and sleep in my own bed.

Finally emerging in the crisp dark Fall midnight

I turn off the Metallica that had been my companion

and drive home

in the quiet