A. J. Wright
Birmingham, Pelham, USA

Poet’s statement: I wrote“In the Waiting Room” after a visit with my mother-in-law to her doctor’s office in Colorado Springs. Passing other offices in the same complex, I noticed an unfinished puzzle on a table. “Rebecca’s doll” is a reflection on my daughter’s youthful fascination with playing “hospital” with her friends and dolls.

 

In the waiting room of the cancer center two people are working on a jigsaw puzzleone thousand pieces! the box warns just above the photoof the finished puzzle a ruined castle in the countryside of a land far far awaythis man and woman are bent over the table as if they have no doubtsunable to know just yet how many pieces are missing

Photography by John Hritz

 

Photography by Molly DG

Rebecca’s doll is receiving the best of care from her three-year-old physicianwho presses a gigantic toy thermometer against those tiny ruby lipsand maneuvers the toy stethoscope over a plastic chest and backas if born to it, finally asking tenderly,do you need an aspirin? does your tummy hurt?the doll keeps smiling, smiling as if born to it and confident that the doctor is in, concerned and competent

 

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A. J. WRIGHT, MLS, is a librarian who has worked for more than 40 years at Auburn University and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He has published poems and articles related to medical history, Alabama history, and other topics in various journals since the late 1960s.

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Highlighted in Frontispiece Summer 2012 – Volume 4, Issue 3

Summer 2012  |  Sections  |  Poetry