Outpatients

So many wait in the sickly light

the morning long

in the stale air stirred by creaking fans

to be ushered in to the bright

clean-cut doctor’s consulting room

for a minute and sent off satisfied,

clutching a prescription for pills.

*

Cheap smart shoes worn matt by use

tap at the disinfected concrete floor.

Muscled limbs flex and stretch,

decked out in the kits of La Liga or Serie A,

and plastic bling.

Gray moustaches trimmed to indicate deference

to convention pout in taciturn disapproval.

Ironed floral skirts are smoothed out over varicose veins

by Parkinsonian hands.

Photo by Andrik Langfield on Unsplash