Hospitals by Michael Estabrook

1
Whenever he finds himself in a hospital
he vows to take better care of himself
especially this time after noticing the sign
on the men’s room door: “This restroom
accommodates persons over 500 lbs.”

2
Right after Dad died in that stark lonely hospital room
the skinny young Asian doctor looked through
his dark glasses at Mom and said, enunciating
his words like he was trying to make them stick
to the wall “I am sorry, but he has expired.”

3
Sleeping on short stiff benches
beside dusty plastic plants
and torn magazines strewn about on ugly
brown end tables in the ICU waiting room waiting
for her mother to emerge from her coma or not.



Michael Estabrook is retired. No more useless meetings under florescent lights in stuffy windowless rooms, able instead to focus on making better poems when he’s not, of course, endeavoring to satisfy his wife’s legendary Honey-Do List.