In the Examining Room
The Minister of Health
is down the hall
in a room like this
(except for me)
I swing my legs
from my table perch
as omens rich
with immanence
infiltrate my mind
Voices soak
through wallboard dikes
the problems are not nice
ailing terms
their crowded names
recalcitrant to tact
but no one breaks
the protocol of fact
with passion torn from need
An old woman
smaller than her life
tows slowly by
on walker stilts
her passage past
my doorway lens
a paraphrase of
Zeno’s paradox
her days made brief
by space not time
Obituary calm
from room to room
despair elation
side by side
their vigil played
for Certainty
who’s hard to find
even Death
is dressed in doubt
Some moments more
a word a sign
the crumpled fear
that goes unsaid
this way the living
that the dead
And when I’m done
and sent along
they’ll change
the paper sheet
on which I sat
and that will be
the end of me
the end of that
10/25/94
Copyright 1994 by Maurice Leiter
Posted with permission
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