By Christina E. Petrides
Artwork by Alli Rowe
To be briefly accessed
By an ordinary American physician
Requires a stint in purgatory.
Compared, the oft-bemoaned Post Office line
Resembles a bullet train to paradise.
Industrial fluorescent rods
Glow overhead in patient areas,
Sickening the dingy upholstery.
The odd magazines
Languish grossly out of date,
Their pages curled
By unwashed thousands’ hands.
Stilted soap opera dialogs
And rapacious lawyer ads
Drip from the television.
Clerks who dimly comprehend
Only the operation of the telephone
Are encased in surgical scrubs.
Personnel not chained to desks
Prod visitors’ mental sores
By reshuffling them
Among the rooms
To the frustrating mantra
“Please wait here,
The doctor will see you shortly.”
So eternity passes by.