Open During Construction

restaurants, condo towers, single lane detours
locals can’t afford after Airbnb
traffic in nervous contractions
and all of us late for appointments.

the Women’s Clinic website warning: “Bless Our Mess!”
smells of sawdust latex ultrasound
thick booted workers paint spattered hammers
eyes fixed on the carpet, awkward where women in various stages
                                                                                                             wait.

Waiting was long and muffled.
I readreadread,
sorting sounds, subdued,
something urgent in the next room
sotto voce like a hotel TV

                                                 (“no story possible, just the voices”)

box of complimentary pads beside the bed, a poorly placed mirror,
rectangle windows high up only squirrels or birds could see
what? and who would they tell?
specimen cut of winter branches sample slides
suggest the whole tree, winter, white…

… wondering how the old fellow fared last night, in 10-degree chill?
said on the bus he’d rather die than go to the shelter,
said he’d been to prison & the army & he “wan’t goin’ no shelter,”
he said, walked away, gets dark early this time of year…

the nurse is younger than my daughter
repeats the litany questions
tries to laugh knowingly.

the phlebotomist is au courant draws blood whispers while the tube fills:
That there’s the toilet paper roller, other side o’the wall. Like nails on a chalkboard
hearin that all day. And them men, they’re nearly done thank god.
Last week one of ‘em was caught peekin in on an exam.
The other men, they brung him outside and … (sssh!) “took care of it”, you know.
He was reassigned.

the book in hand, Erín Moure, Furious, “The Acts 14. ‘It is impossible to
conceptualize …’” (98).