Waiting Room

In the waiting room it’s muted
in the waiting room it’s cold
filling forms and signing papers
simply doing what I’m told

smiling faces gazing up from
creased and tattered magazines
seem content to be distractions -
they’re still prettier than me

there’s a door that I came in through
there’s a door where I will go
with a waiting room between them
full of people I don’t know

all whose lives have been delayed here
and who share a common aim;
who can only sit and wait for
someone else to call their name

there is water in the corner
and a clock that holds its breath,
there are flippant plastic houseplants
impervious to dust and death

there’s a door that closed behind us
there’s a door that’s closed in front
with a silence in the waiting
full of nothing that we want