AT THE CLINIC.

 

The separating chasm is made up

of scruffy carpet tiles that stretch away

between our bank of plastic chairs

and theirs.  Along our row

sit silent couples, all tight-lipped

and mostly hand in white, clench-knuckled hand;

and me.  The seat here next to me is empty.

How hard these shiny plastic chairs can feel,

bolted to their metal tethering bar.

There is no moving them.

 

Across the way

big-bellied women chat, read magazines

shift their weight on buckling rows of chairs

the same as ours, but many worlds away.

Between their feet, their toddlers roll and crawl

and haul themselves upright with sticky hands.

The mothers glance at us and maybe wonder

what we are “in” for, trying not to stare.

A staff nurse rustles down the great divide

bearing a wire tray of vaginal specula.

 

What casual cruelty is this;

while I can’t bear to look at pregnant friends

to face these ripening ranks across the way?

Which sadistic manager decreed

that we, the barren ones, would share

this space, with happy, gravid girls

and their burgeoning offspring?

 

I move, uncomfortably, in my seat

waiting for my turn to be called in

to lie back on the paper-covered couch

to be told “relax, and drop your knees”.

And I wonder, how the bloody hospital

could make these chairs so very hard to sit on.