Sitting In The Meeting on the 1st Floor

The automatic hospital doors groan

revealing wasted eyes

landing on me

where I sit on my hands

in the waiting room. I can smell

the news on his breath.

He has been leaning

on a menthol kiss

in the parking lot. It is

the one thing

keeping him off

the floor.

Derby

Leading Lady falls

while we are watching from the infield.

Drinking dirt julips in strangers suits and ties.

Grace is crying. The ladies with the birds

on their heads would always get more attention

from the mud faced man. The one that she loves.

Covered in dust and cigar ash. That must have fallen down

from the box seats with the rain. Only cigarettes breathe down here.

Piles of white tickets, clutched and then forgotten

with the flash of a bulb. Black numbers adding up to

bus fare at best.