On the Ward

There are three hands here.
A smell like boiled fear.
We don’t tolerate balloons
says the nurse as she pushes another
empty wheelchair through the hall.

Her shoes may once have been white.
They look too much like hope.
Why she feels the need to explain
is never explained.
Empty beds have dented pillows.

The nurse holds a mechanical pencil
and marks the margins of thick charts.
Very young men play the bed controls,
moving mattresses up and down
like a video game.

They are rugged and tan. As taut
as skin under the eyes during detonation.
Sometimes there are holes where a
third of the cranium should be.
Physical therapy is a half hour of music.

One man passes a note with his left hand
that reads we eat marginalia for breakfast.
There is a bouquet of bone saws on the table.
While the nurse changes his dressing
he admits that his right hand

may have been responsible
for setting off the fire alarm last night.
In the next bed, his roommate watches cartoons
while one eye rolls uncontrollably
in search of a balloon.

Ann Walters lives in the Pacific Northwest. Her poetry has appeared in various publications, including Carousel, The Aurorean, Folio, Poet Lore, and Poetry International, as well as the recently released anthologies, Eating Her Wedding Dress and In the Telling.