Clinic
by Timothy Reed
The cupboards stood in ranks
Symmetrical
White as death-faces
Pegged eyes staring
in vacant malice
The table is flat and white
Like an unwritten book
Feigning innocence, charity
Blank scroll stretches smooth as snow
before a foot says “no more”
Soap, soap, soap
Scrubbing the scars, scabs
It loves raw things, open things
no warm, unsanitary memories will be left,
tolerated - all are effaced, eroded
And I smile and say something polite
Signing, smiling, signing again
I would run, but for these wretched pink walls
Pink as cotton candy
Flat as a pressed shirt
My stomach turns
But my feet cannot
escape the white halls
the white faces
the white walls
and that pink - mocking pink
reeling me in like some hooked fish
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