The doctor will be with you soon,

Or so you’re told.

You find a chair in row of chairs

With perfect Feng Shui,

Backs against the wall

Not too close to anyone else,

Where you can narrow your gaze

At the door through which we all must pass

As long as we have insurance.

 

You ask yourself

If you’re the first person who

Noticed the carpet’s infinitely repeating gray pattern.

Definitely not M.C. Escher.

More like…Escheresque.

The pale, Mission green olive walls and blond wood chairs,

The wall-mounted flat-screen showed smiling people

Stop smiling as they were told they should not despair that

More than a hundred bats

Were living happily just behind the dry wall

Of the house they just bought.

 

You ask yourself

If the red-faced sniffler,

Or that guy in the camo jacket contemplating gastrointestinal urgency,

And that bleary-eyed parent who had probably stayed up half the night

With the child beside her,

Were members of a secret society

Who only pretended to be ill

So they could explore the

Many fascinating and unique waiting rooms

And behave like those who are humbled

By stained glass, stone columns, clerestory windows

And the bird that flies in and doesn’t quite know what to do with itself

As a medieval cathedral reveals itself

As the house of the God

Who doesn’t have to make things right

Because they already are.

 

Did you hear a heavily accented guide,

Begin a bouncy little spiel

About the waiting room’s unique place and function in history of

commercial architecture and interior design?

 

Did you observe the gently enclosing,

But not confining

Effect of the coffee-colored blinds on the window overlooking the parking lot?

Now, come,  marvel at how the warm earth tones

With the the vibrant, if slightly worn covers of magazines

And the crucial absence of clocks,

Combine to evoke an institutional calm,

Suggesting that sickness and discomfort

(and a home infested with bats!)

Were all momentary aberrations

As we make our gentle, loving progress

On God’s green earth?

 

No? Well, then take these few minutes

While you endure the agony

Of bats screeching under your skin,

To be thankful that you have insurance (and the co-pay!)

So you can walk through that door

And be a child again

In front of the grown-up

You’ve been waiting for.