A
waiting room
with palpable tension --
skin stretched tight over
knuckles
on hands that grip
a seat that refuses to become a
spaceship
to fly me away
becomes
A dentist's office
with sinister tools
whose cheery silver gleam cannot hide the fact
that they will soon excavate my gums
as the chair mockingly reclines
like a menacing Barca lounger;
and then
A living room
infested by self-pity and an aching mouth and Jenny Jones
while I clamp down a bleeding jaw
on a once-pure square of gauze
and sit on a couch
that envelops me in comfort I don't notice
as I attend to my complaining mouth.