4:42 pm in the waiting room

a poem

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

I can’t focus among the chaos flying
toys, bibles, shoes. Brainwaves running slime mold 
all directions engulfing stimuli
in a cytoplasmic mass. There is not

a face you see in dreams that you haven’t seen
in waking life. Who are all these strangers?
(Will I dream about them later tonight?)
I would have been okay with you sitting

on the roof of my house in the trailer
park watching the sunset. Four-four timing
must be so common in music because
it mimics our heartbeats. Ansel Adams was

the Walt Whitman of photography. What
is my hamartia? Sadness sings louder
than Joy sometimes. That man must not know I
can feel his cologne stench through my eyeballs: 

vile! What am I to understand or gain 
from experiencing this chaos? There 
is surely fungus among all of this:
flying toys, bibles, thoughts and shoes. 

Conscientiousness. Can you imagine 
how hard it was is to be your daughter?

© Ashlan Isadore McHugh 2019