In the Waiting Room

I have eight Irish uncles interrupting me with
bathroom jokes and Chinese food. They keep trying
to send me home to shower, to rest.
The waiting room is always
full. Maybe this is the eighth day, or maybe
I’ve never heard this song at all. I can’t tell–everything
vinyl carpet plastic vending machine window pillow uncle
green–what keeps beeping?–smells like a place
I’ve never slept in. I keep making coffee
for the other family. They’re kind, move
over to make room. Theirs had a stroke on Sunday,
“but he should be fine, fine.” They ask,
do I eat, sleep? I’ve had my share
of Chinese food I tell them. Keep making coffee. I make
excellent coffee, my father would tell me. My father’s
in there. I go in every few hours, sometimes
less. Plenty of visitors and eight impish uncles aping
James Cagney to distraction. One brought cards
but I don’t want to play. I know there’s a chapel downstairs–
maybe later. When I sit next
to my father, I read magazines to myself. I hate
magazines. Yesterday I said lunch: soup, chips, Cherry Coke,
did you hear the one about the princess and the opossum oh forget it my father
hates chit-chat. I watch the nurses flirt. Remember his eyes are smoke-
blue. I know there’s a virus
blooming:
pink pink peony
in his head, but look
how petal still