Row Four

The receptionist has a bowl of mints

that no one ever touches.

I’ve been here forty minutes, maybe more,

tracing the grid of the linoleum floor.

Row three is a disaster area.

Twelve deep scratches where a chair must have lived,

shoved back and forth by someone tired.

But row four is different. It’s only got nine.

Right there, under the leg of the empty seat,

is a scuff mark shaped like a crescent moon,

a gray fingernail clipping left in the wax.

I wonder if the person who made it

is still waiting for their name to be called.