In the Waiting Room

Craig Morgan Teicher

magazines from a lost month litter the end
tables. A pretty nurse

pops her head in and says,
The doctor will see you now, though not

to you, and no one stands up—you are
the only one waiting.

But soon the doctor will cast the long shadow
of his diagnosis. You’ve got

a thorn in your paw, a toothache, chronic
wide eyes, fear of fear

of fear itself, time on your hands
slipping between your fingers,

lost lust, purgatory, online pain, short
straws, overexaggeration,

the tendency to list: short, fat, and forlorn,
ever inoperable . . . O to have

a nurse of your very own, a time-angel, someone
on the one and only payroll

to pass you the pill it’s always time to take, whose
rear your eyes can follow

to Happytown. But now, here, however,
you are skimming an article

about the viral video that sank New York,
then a profile of the man

who played the real-life Michael Jackson.
An article on who really profits

from most chilly wind. On the truth about
close friendship. On ten safe things

to open your mind to. You are an
Elizabeth! You are one of them!

Soon someone will call you in.

Lifted

Well, I guess no one can have everything.
I must learn to celebrate when I fail.
Inner growth and fortitude follow the sting,
right? Won't I rise with holy wind in my sails?
Yet they always seem to get what I want,
door after door flung open. Why are
the keepers of doors, who haunt
the hopeful halls of fate and desire
so partial to them, but not to me?
Yes, I do feel sorry for myself—don't, brother,
pretend the bitter blanket of self-pity,
hasn't warmed your bones.

Craig Morgan Teicher

2019

Tomorrow and Tomorrow Again

Of course I don’t know what
happens to us: if we survive in the
hands of love; if Cal, if Simone
and all the trembling answers
those questions entail; whether
by time or by disease or by
an atom bomb right in the eye. Is it
possible death could be thrilling

Craig Morgan Teicher

2018

Another Day

It should be difficult,
always difficult, rising
from bed each morning,
against gravity, against

dreams, which weigh
like the forgotten names
of remembered faces.
But some days it’s

easy, nothing, to rise,
to feed, to work, to
commit the small graces
that add up to love,

to family, to memory,
finally to life, or
what one would choose
to remember of it, not

those other leaden
mornings when sleep
is so far preferable
to pulling over one’s

Craig Morgan Teicher

2018

Poems

In the Waiting Room

More by this poet

Lifted

Tomorrow and Tomorrow Again

Another Day

Poems

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In the Waiting Room

More by this poet

Lifted

Tomorrow and Tomorrow Again

Another Day

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