Pensieve

Call Room Naps,
are like snatches of sanity,
as are the Kellog rice krispy treats
I shove into my white coat pocket for
inhaling in a corner during rounds.
This hospital life is strange:
strange smells and pajama-like clothing,
OR lights and dark black suture material.
I wake my old-man-charlie-brown patients
up in the morning much too early, all
except for Mr.B, who is always awake
with smiling eyes before I swoop into to
rest my stethoscope on his chest, and ask
about his bowel habits.
Clearly, I am not his friend, but
he still offers to play his guitar for me
later....
later never really comes. I think he knows
his flurried student doctor won't come back,
won't be able to check all the haphazardly
unsquare boxes on her list today or any day.
But he smiles anyway, and tells me that he
pooped, because he knows it makes me glad.