← v11n1, Spring 2012
Poetry · Volume 11, Number 1

Hospital Visit

From his window she looks out

on railroad tracks.

After doctors’ hustled rounds,

nurses’ coffeeing at their station,

mops gone through,

IV in a new vein,

he sleeps.

She diagnoses train.

It runs steely. Does not whisper.

Is not sterile.

Has God-knows-what inside those boxcars.

It means business.

Its hard breathing says

what its business is:

BE IN ANOTHER TOWN TONIGHT.