The Waiting Room
by Janet Buck
I pull at my husband's arm
as if that tug will tether
a strand of my hair to a braid.
All eyes shift to us and lock.
He strikes me as walls
that bodies were born to lean against.
An ocean of braces, crutches, and casts.
Unwelcome props in a show that will close.
Those rolling chairs.
I'd walk a mile just to clip
the sight of those wheels
in a photo tarring my face.
My skin has slipped
like puffs of white alyssum seeds
succumbing to the passing spring.
Wrinkles write maps under my eyes.
I stare at a book, a tour of 9/11's hell
that makes my snake pit
seem like pillows
propped against a paradise.
For a moment of grief,
the words of a worser pain
act like oblong pills.
All of us here -- the brittle plate.
It's a train wreck of twisted knees,
injuries crying for hope's reverse.
Pain is a callus to sand,
but quitting the dance
is out of the question of will.
The healthy are taking notes.
As if their sentence is next on a page
that will turn to their trials.
Life is a cold church
but we pray as hair rises on arms
to blanket the thrust of the chill.
Lipstick is a little game
I've forgotten to add to my purse.
Janet Buck's poetry, poetics, and fiction have appeared in The Pedestal
Magazine, Poetry Magazine.com, CrossConnect, The Pittsburgh Quarterly,
Kimera, The Rose & Thorn, 2River View, Southern Ocean Review, Disquieting
Muses, Urban Spaghetti, Perihelion, Mind Fire, Born Magazine, pif, 3rd Muse,
Verse Libre Quarterly, Big Bridge, pith and hundreds of journals world-wide.
Buck was one of U.S. poets to be featured at the "One Heart, One World"
Exhibit at the United Nations Exhibit Hall in New York City in April, 2000.
In January 2001, Art Villa Records released Janet's first audio CD of poetry
and music called Before the Rose. It is available at:
http://www.artvilla.com/shopping/poetry/rose.htm
To hear a sample from the CD, go to:
http://www.artvilla.com/mp3/umbrellas.mp3.
Note: Featured
author in January 2001
E-mail: JBuck22874@aol.com
Writing interests: Poetry
Poems: "The
Orphan", "Caught
in Lesser Tragedies", "The
Broken Promise", "The
Gargoyle", "The
Going", "The
Bag Lady", "Rushing
Toward Entelechy", "The
Paralyzed Apocalypse", "Frozen
Sonnets", "New
York, New York", "Live
on CNN", "America
Under Siege", "Gutter
Balls"
Links: Hot Links:
Janet I. Buck, Janet's
Latest Interview, Desideratum's
Doggie Dish, Author's Den,
Active Amp.org—Features
Janet I. Buck, Poetry
Magazine.Com-October-Janet Buck, The
Part-time Postmodernist (August 2000), San
Francisco Salvo, Moongate:
Janet I. Buck, Offcourse, The October
Country , Cafe
Society: Poetry Life & Times, Kookamonga
Square, The
Adirondack Review , janetbuck.com, Funky Dog
Publishing—Janet Buck's Strawberry Nipples, Athens
Avenue—Janet I. Buck, One
World-One Heart Exhibit , Ygdrasil:
Issue 9 September 2000