Lunchbox Poems

Strip to the waist and have a seat. The doctor

will be in soon. He smiles and the nurse smiles.

He sits on the table, bumping his knees together,

scratching around is navel, counting the tiles.

We never talk, she says, and so you talk

and everything you speak of falls apart.

This is how we come to understand

what they mean by chambers of the heart.

Some words are said to start a conversation.

Some, after which there’s nothing more to say.

“Amen,” for instance. “I said I was sorry.”

“Tower, we’re going down. This is PSA.”

MILLER WILLIAMS