Waiting in Seven Parts

 

1

It is all right waiting when you have a cup of coffee and old blues music. I do not like waiting when there is no music or coffee, only the walls of the hospital.

 

2

A slow clock. A stain on the carpet. Magazines with ears like dogs. Scuffs on the walls. A slow clock, waiting, radio.

 

3

I sit in the chair, undecided. Swim or toast? Walk or stay? My indecision becomes a decision. I stay sitting in the chair, listening to the chattering sparrows, waiting for nothing.

 

4

I watch the ten past two clock. Click, click. Four small elephants stare out at me from a green table. Three heads in flower pots gaze out of the window at the shoddy May clouds. It’s supposed to be spring but it feels like winter. I wait for warm days.

 

5

There is a seagull in the waiting room. I don’t believe it’s waiting for a train but for the scraps of chips lying here. Perhaps I am wrong and it will catch the 17.14 to Brighton, along with the baby and the woman with wings for eyes.

 

6

There is getting up to be done and the making of porridge and after, a clearing of plates but I continue to sit and stare at the flowers on the counterpane and only my breath moves.

 

7

I am waiting for the world to startle and turn in quite a different direction. Nothing is gained by waiting, you used to say. I am not so sure. Patience is a virtue, is it not? But oh, how fast this world spins.

 

 

 

 

The home of writer Bronwen Griffiths