The Arithmetic of Waiting

My phone is a dead slab of glass in my pocket.

I’m left with the grid above my head,

the white squares held in metal tracks

like a crossword puzzle that was never read.

Forty-two holes in the first row.

Thirty-nine in the second. I fail

to keep the tally straight as people go

in and out, their faces tired and pale.

I find the one tile that doesn't fit,

a brown water stain shaped like a lung

expanding over the fluorescent light.

I count the spots where the mold has bit,

waiting for my name to be called

into the fluorescent white.