Terminal Patience
notes from a public room
Someone eats chips
one at a time,
folding the bag flat
between bites.
A crossword passes hands.
Answers are penciled lightly,
as if they might be wrong
for reasons not yet known.
Two people speak about traffic
until the story thins
and keeps going.
The sentence starts again,
shorter.
On the television
a game show cheers
for money
no one here would stand to claim.
Every few minutes
the doors open.
The room leans forward.
It isn’t for anyone.
The chips stop.
The pencil rests.
Someone laughs
a second too late
to be covering anything.
Nothing happens.
Which feels
like a skill
everyone is practicing.
Im in a hospital waiting room, waiting for the news of death in my suffocated breath. Your poem reads of a quiet ache of unspoken tension between grief and maintaining composure. The toils and tortures in our lives… beautifully written.
Joe, this is painfully accurate. The chips one at a time. The bag folded flat. The penciled answers held lightly. The room leaning forward every time the doors open, even though it is never for anyone. And that ending. “Nothing happens, which feels like a skill everyone is practicing.” That’s the whole room in one sentence.