Waiting Room

I am the room for all seasons,
The waiting room. Here the impatient
Fidget, gossip, yawn and fret and sneeze. I am the room

For summer (sunburn, hay-fever, ear wax,
Children falling out of plum trees, needing patching);

For autumn (arthritis and chesty coughs,
When the old feel time worry ing at their bones);

For winter (flu, and festival hangovers,
Flourish of signatures on skiers’ plaster of Paris);

For spring (O the spots of adolescence,
Unwary pregnancies, depression, various kinds of itch):

I am the room that understands waiting,
With my box of elderly toys, my dog-eared Woman’s Owns,
Permanent as repeat prescriptions, unanswerable as ageing,
Heartening as the people who walk out smiling, weary

As doctors and nurses working on and on.