Hospital

by Marianne Bouruch

It seem so--

I don't know.  It seems

as if the end of the world

has never happened in here.

No smoke, no

dizzy flaring except

those candles you can light

in the chapel for a quarter.

They last maybe an hour

before burning out.

                                   And in this room

where we wait, I see

them pass, the surgical folk--

nurses, doctors, the guy who hangs up

the blood drop--ready for lunch,

their scrubs still starched into wrinkles,

a cheerful green or pale blue,

and the end of a joke, something

about a man who though he could be--

what?   I lose it

in their brief laughter.