In Waiting – a poem by Joshua S. Fullman

In Waiting

I breathe in then, feel the winter noon sun
glaze the waxing glass of the hospital’s
anteroom, trailing chills in its low run

through the city. Glaring long at white walls
bare of light and art and icons who might
have soothed my rage with their numinous calls

to the skies, I turn to watch nurses, whose night
and morning blur sleepless, see cut and break
as mercuries of pain. I sit, stand, right

my left, drown in coffee as my hands shake,
grasping air. I dare speak but never hoist
our clawing fear, share souvenirs that make

our eyes and lips flicker though not rejoice—
and maybe won’t again. Then, I breathe out,
confess that contemplation is a choice,

refuse its consolation for your sake,
or so I claim. Messengers return, voice
nothing, no word nor prophecy to slake

this madness: here, the sincere text seems trite,
the kind call like ice, sympathy an ache
half-dressed. I am become an anchorite

insulated from warmth as my life stalls
out, treading shattered glass. New shadows fright
the room, new spirits search me through the halls

to pierce this sacrilege. You grip my thigh, stun
my paralysis as the stale air falls
and some strange scent hints something’s been undone.

Joshua S. Fullman is Professor of English and Director of the Writing Center at California Baptist University where he teaches composition and creative writing. His recent book, Voices of Iona (Wipf and Stock, 2022), is a poetry collection of an American expatriate living in the British Isles.