Thoughts while lingering at the nurses station

You get hints in the hospital
Things like: we will not live forever

When they don’t notice you lingering at the nurses station
you can (pretend to) decide who’s not up to tending to people today

Snippets of nurturing conversation waft through the air
like the scent of hot pretzels
peddled from the park pushcart–
a memory from another time and place

Only now it’s the hospital
and the smell is disinfectant with a hint of
get me out of here, I was fine a week ago

I hear the nurse muttering about a selfish patient
and reflect
Garbed in hospital gown
people can become cantankerous

Someone important discusses the fine line between a heart attack and (…mumble…) heart (…mumble…)
I can’t – and don’t want to – hear everything

Kids tumble over each other in the visitor’s lobby
restless, impatient with this ghost called unwell

Yet in the maternity ward
there is blessed reprieve
language unlike on other floors

Mazal tovs and congrats!
The symphony of newborns
springing to life

Blue and pink satin ribbons unfurl
Summer eternally present
I plant my feet here
and welcome brand new life.

“Let us make man.”  ~Genesis 1:26