03 Sep Monument
Monument
by Richard Hamilton
A sizable white nurse, male possibly
in his 30s at the ER asks me to recount
what happened. “So, what.
How did you end up here,” he asks
like an institution — monosyllabic,
terse, & assuming.
“You should have
made the clinic work-order
a priority.”
Globules, when the nurse
asks me, (anything
other than droplets, drops
or things institutions
find small and insignificant).
I can’t recall the better word,
“I was placed on antibiotics, spit
out with an order for chest x-rays.”
It is the local clinic where we all
go tired and penniless, poor
as mice.
“You don’t treat patients like that,” I opine.
“How could you know their situation?”
Like an elastic rubber band, he snaps.
“Now, look where you ended up.”
Like a pulp wood incinerator, he clamors.
“You could have driven yourself.”
“I don’t have a car.”
“There’s Uber and Lyft.”
“Please, no.”
He quips, “This is a hospital.”
Confederate monument
that can’t be toppled.
I grimace. Smirk.
“It’s also a nonprofit—human
service
organization, you
shit.” It comes out
like any useless mission
statement.
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