She thinks in a smaller hospital
She would remember each face
With some embarrassment
She can remember all the rooms

1421
From whose eaves pigeons tumble
Its permanent winter of shit
Where she would like to put a thin strip of suspended garden
Something in love with guano like hay
Some ruffling infancy of color

707
Where a couple lay in bed, one sick
The two now faceless in ozone hoods
The room wore its stretch of curtain
Tight and broad like a bandeau in June
Unspeakable honeymoon
Ringing for ginger ale all the time

1603
With its own sitting room
A surplus of telephones
One almost expects a little home bar
Silver shakers a cigarette tray

707
Where a couple lay in bed
—was the smaller one sick
Is that just farm logic—
Its stretch of green curtain
Smooth and stiff like a banker’s lamp
Amortizing a fixed account

830
She thinks somehow she belongs there
Its shadows and somnolence appeal to her
The clock runs behind
The television sometimes stuck on a Mass
Just its own digestion
Plasma and diode
It is what she will ask for when sick

1118
Snow falls to water
The nurse’s badge
Clicks on the bed rail with a bell’s tread
The green fixtures spell nausea
Like a lighthouse one sees the swing
Begin before the beam’s upon

516
Surely the face here—
It forms then jumps
Pocket magnet startled
By breathing
She grasps it and it changes
Faster than tadpoles
She shoves it
And it will not grimace
Long enough to keep