Managed Care

The nurse calls out a name that isn't mine yet.

I look up at the tile, the brown water stain

bleeding out in the shape of a lung

or a map of the county I can't afford to leave.

Up in the fluorescent light, behind the dust,

is a fly that died in the winter of ninety-eight.

It’s still there, a black speck in the hum,

watching us wait for the same generic pills

at the same linoleum desk.