Kia ora koutou, I went to the local medical centre this afternoon to have the ‘flu injection and you know how they say afterwards – Sit in the waiting room for twenty minutes to make sure there’s no reaction? Well I lasted ten but in that time I remembered and thought about Adrienne’s poem, The Waiting Room, from her collection, Keel & Drift, published 2016 by Landing Press.
The Waiting Room
There are yellow gerberas
beside the magazines.
Among the panes of frosted glass
is one clear square of window
and he is bobbing and peering
to see through it. His wheelchair
is the wrong height. His cap dips
as though in obeisance, but its frustration.
Everything is the wrong height now.
She is sitting beside the magazines.
She smiles at him. He glances
at her two good legs.
He doesn’t know her liver’s packing up,
she’s looking down the barrel of a gun.
Sun slants through the clear glass square.
She catches his glance and winks at him.
He takes off his cap and rubs his shiny head.
Adrienne Jansen
