Tucson hospital, waiting room

The visitors outside the icu,
                   After first greetings, don’t have much to say.
And yet, an idle gazing on the view
                   Of cars parked in the warming desert day,
Waiting themselves in silence, will not do.

And so, they speak of where their children live,
                   Now that they’re grown with children of their own,
Of one’s tenacity or initiative,
                   A grandchild’s trophy, grades, or broken bone.
No detail is too trivial to give.

Their voices hide those distant beeps and hums
                   That hint of purposes they only guess.
And as they laugh, that place, it seems, becomes
                   One where old women praise a young girl’s dress
And she, in turn, shows off her speed at sums.

But when, from time to time, a nurse appears
                   And summons someone through the heavy door,
They leave off reminiscing of past years,
                   And find the window’s blazing scene once more,
In silence wondering whose disaster nears.

 

James Matthew Wilson, The New Criterion vol 42, #7 (March 20, 2024)