Send Wheelchair to 406
 
Clank of plastic striking metal.  Polymer-
jacketed tile makes granite look soft.  
Glass,  the better to see Patient X.  
Sheets, cases, and blanket starched hard.
Like a stiff on shingle, backside exposed,
mid-mall on a  Saturday.   Multi-leveled,  
smells of  coated fabric and hothouse
mums.   Alcohol. . .deodorant. . .dressed
flesh. Cost-inflated corridors maze.   Poster-
landscape-poster.  Inventory check:  cups,
plastic;  straws, bendable;  tissue, sandpaper
grade, pads.  All billed at many times cost.  
Fluorescents blink.  Paraphernalia clatter.
Nursing stations bleep and buzz.  Intercoms
squawk in code.   Milky Ways, cardboard
sandwiches, and Fritos clunk into vending
machine trays.  Coffee!   Coffee!   Other
smells: watered   Jell-O, razor-sliced meat.  
Running-shoed hirelings, most of who will
tell you they are underpaid and under-
appreciated, pad along  halls shiny enough
to blind.  Do not expect   to sleep.  Forget
any semblance  of rest.  Brace for tests
tested because they are "covered."  Good
news:  insurance ok.  BlueCross,  MediCare,
MasterCard, Visa,  AmEx, Discover.  Show  
valid ID and leave blood, might take a check.
Staff rotates;  don't think about familiar.
Doctors, nurses, aides, and techs change more
than bedding.   Please tell someone that
there's a human in 406-A.  Said being requests
release.  Remove tubes,   lower rails,  point it
toward its clothes.   Latest "improvements"
noted on chart not noted by  being,  note.
Exhausted, wants Out.  Wants to set foot
on ragged carpet needs a good  shampoo.  
Wants a pillow dented  to match its head,
and Granny's nit-balled quilt.   Croon of a
voice not paid to pretend.  Let the being
drink from finger-smudged glass once held
jelly.   Let it get up, catch as can, and roam
unspied-upon through a dust-bunnied house.
Let the light veer gold to amber, not blue to
ghoul.  Let the windows reveal untrimmed
shrubs and trees no landscaper would look at
twice,  Give it a pet to warm and increase  
immunity with licks,  then curl the animal
where its eyes can love without a word.   Big
Medicine,  your hyped care hastens Death
No RX or surgery can cure on its own.  'Soon
as we squash drug and insurance spiders,
money will flow so voice mail will no longer
constitute "communication."   Doc may even
come to the house sometime.  It could happen.
It could. But for now . .here, kitty-kitty, here

          (c)  Phyllis Jean Green, April, 2009
                       All  Rights  Reserved

N:  Ray and I depend on dog Nicky to 'medicate,' but
a cat came to the door as I was finishing the poem. . .
all right, it's a lie.  Pet helps, 's'all I'm sayin.'  More
cuddlesome, the better!