poem

 Bloodwork

The doctor has ordered blood work. Vials and vials of tests. They take so much blood you feel dizzy. They give you a snack. When you call for the results she refers you to a specialist. He shakes his head in disgust and redirects you to the proper subspecialist. It takes 6 months to nail down an appointment. In the meantime your blood counts fluctuate. You laugh and cry and rage. The price of gas dominates the front pages. None of your friends ever had to give blood. Something seems amiss. On the day of your appointment you get lost in the parking lot. But there were never any spaces. The valet is rude and demands to see your papers. You never see your car again. Just inside the building you have to hand over everything you own. Your pens and poems and scraps of receipts. Your wallet. Your keys. The list of names to contact when you’ve passed. The password to an account containing $17. The matches from a restaurant in the valley.  Your phone. Your memories. The waiting room is a large hall with a high arced ceiling made out of treated wood like a midwestern non-denominational church where the pastor plays the guitar. The chairs are all broken. The line for the check-in spirals around the room 3 times like a chambered nautilus. A man behind you is crying. He keeps saying I’ll never leave over and over like the words to a morning birdsong. None of us actually do, says the sparrow behind him. When it’s finally your turn at the window you find out your appointment has been cancelled. She tells you to go back to the end of the line. The look on your face halts the clouds. Her finger hovers over the button to summon security. But the doctor feels bad. He remembers what it was like.  He ushers you into a special room where you wait and wait. Here, the walls are pure white and the ceiling looks like an upside down well. The only way out is to jump straight up as high as you can and hope you land in water. 

9/28/26