I ask the wheelchair guy to stop,
To take a little break and shop
Whatever orange notes can buy.

I tell him he deserves the dime.
Transporting patients all the time
Can be a damper on a guy.

He thanks me, winks, and runs along.
I stand like there is nothing wrong:
A patient’s transport gone awry

Upon a rusty bridge that cords
The ICUs to private wards
And opens out into the sky.

He likes the nightly summer breeze.
The way it tickles through the trees.
The way it melts into his sigh.

To feel it, not just see it through
The tinted glass in AC rooms.
To feel it cool his running eye.

The wheelchair guy is back too soon.
He puffs into the rising moon.
It’s time again to go inside.