On line once, waiting
for a Greyhound bus
I stood behind a woman
with the same look
my father wore for weeks,
waiting to die.
And I thought
we practice
all our lives
waiting
on supermarket lines
burdened by produce,
by telephones
whose mute refusals
make silence
absolute;
we wait under clocks
with insect numbers
and arrows pointing
nowhere, in doctors’ offices
thumbed over
like old magazines. Time is
the lover here, breathing
down your neck,
and when you need
him most, he’ll disappear.
It was like this caught
in the shallows, waiting
to be born,
it is like this divided
among suitcases,
waiting to be left
to leave. At home
waiting to grow up
I used to lean
against the sundial
my father built,
and the sun threw
its knife-edged
shadow down
cutting across
the knotted years.
Waiting Room
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