Waiting Room Cartography

The hum of the fluorescent light, a thin white sound.

My jaw, a dull throb. Nothing profound

just yet, just the slow creep of a needle, the ache.

Above me, an acoustic tile, for goodness sake,

held a map. A brown stain, the color of old tea,

spread across its porous surface. A geography

of some forgotten leak. I traced the edge

with my mind, found a continent, a mountain ridge.

Maybe a face, an old man looking down.

Or just the slow seep, the ugly, brown

consequence of something broken overhead.

I watched it for twenty minutes, what the nurse said

would be 'just a moment.' It didn't change.

It just hung there, out of reach, in its strange,

still place. A silent witness to the dull wait.

My own small world, measured by its fate.