Big City Hospital Poem by Patti Masterman

You go alone, inside the implacable stone buildings
Made by machines and men's bric-a-brac dreams,
You ascend to the stars, in the quiet elevator
Watch the numbers increase, feel the small box leave.

It opens with an out-take of breath like your own
And expels you out, into swaying corridors
In the heart of the building, where the walls gently quake,
And the floors soundless quiver, with a purring vibrato;
The whole thing in motion, like a witche’s dry heaves.

In the bosom of metal and concrete, you're held,
The world kept at bay, as it moves at a crawl;
From high above windows, which you can't ever open-
To keep you inviolate, so you can't ever fall.

This place has the heart, of metal talons and claws,
To those are tormented, within its clean walls-
But you're the welcome guest, and the pampered visitor-
The still unknown factor, within all these walls.