Do you remember that Wednesday afternoon three years ago
When we made a fruit tree by stringing together store bought bananas on Christmas lights
And tossed up our sunny masterpiece on sycamore branches
Sick of more dead winter
Sick of unsproutable seedlings
Sick of Patience, the Godliest of virtues?
Tap! Tap! Tap!
I’m sitting a few feet away from the leaky faucet.
Perhaps the faucet is clued in on the old adage that persistence pays off
So it presses on, presses on, presses on…
Marching to the beat of it’s own drum
But this drumming sounds too much like hollow dripping,
Like how I imagine the IV’s medicinal potion entering into your veins to sound.
Tap! Tap! Tap!
Your mother’s fidgeting fingers are dancing nervously on a People’s Magazine
She’s thumbing through pages but her face is fixated on the clock
Mentally counting down the minutes until your surgery is done
Mentally noting the ironies of a Waiting Room trying too hard to pass off as a careless bubble of distraction.
After all the room reeks of hospital cleaner laced with some derivative of a citrus scent,
And the television is left talking to itself like some incoherent patient diagnosed with insanity
And it reminds of her of an article she perused so long ago
Which read something along the lines of “if you hang out with crazy long enough, you’ll become crazy yourself”
And for a brief moment, she was comforted
Tap! Tap! Tap!
The doctor politely knocks before entering,
Everyone raises up to surround him,
But I stay physically stay affixed to my seat
And mentally float back to that faraway memory
Where we sprung into action
Combating the cold
With the only acceptable weapons of choice:
Bright lights and Yellow bananas.