Waiting Room Poem by Maya Reid

Hard blue chairs
Magazines
Sitting staring
Sitting reading
Sitting distracting
Sitting waiting
It’s funny how they design whole
Rooms around sitting waiting
What are we waiting for?
News of a loved one,
To be let in,
Test results,
Just to be seen?
By who, for what?
Maybe just to see for ourselves?
There is no clock in the waiting room,
No way to tell time is moving
But the hustle and bustle of hospital staff
And overheard nervous conversations
In the waiting room
Sitting wishing
That she is
Or it isn’t
Reading generic signs about
Washing your hand and caring for the
Common cold,
Everyone in the room having one thing
In common—
We are waiting.
Waiting hoping
Waiting dreading
Waiting pacing
Waiting to outwait the wait
And know something
Know whether she is
Or it isn’t.