Waiting

A square, squat room (a cellar on promotion),

Drab to the soul, drab to the very daylight;

Plasters astray in unnatural-looking tinware;

Scissors and lint and apothecary's jars.

Here, on a bench a skeleton would writhe from,

Angry and sore,

I wait to be admitted:

Wait till my heart is lead upon my stomach,

While at their ease two dressers do their chores.

One has a probe—it feels to me a crowbar.

A small boy sniffs and shudders after bluestone.

A poor old tramp explains his poor old ulcers.

Life is (I think) a blunder and a shame.