He seems tired. (I’m his last appointment.)
Being wise all day probably takes its toll,
having to know but not appear to know
so patients search out answers on their own.
“Right?” I ask him. He shrugs, “If you say so.”
“On the other hand,” he’s fond of saying;
“You tell me what it means,” he grins slyly—
transparent strategies, hoops I’ll leap through
into happiness, if that’s what it takes.
“Ah, happiness,” he sighs, again the grin.
Weekly, we meet. The clinic waiting room
is strewn with cheap toys and old magazines
I never heard of: Working Mother, Self,
and one for kids with guessing games and jokes
none of them reads. One little girl tells me
her older brother’s sick, “and mean,” she adds.
Her frazzled mother scolds her, “Shut your mouth!”
lifting a threatening hand. “Sick!” she repeats
and bursts into giggles, and so do I.
I sober instantly when he appears.
We walk the endless hall. Along the way
the whirring noise machines outside each door
obscure confessions going on inside:
mothers who scold and swat, fathers who drink,
uncles who fondle, lovers who betray—
the whole sad gamut of inhumanity
we practice on each other, which is why
we’ve come here, sick and mean, to heal ourselves.
“Right?” I ask him. He’s not supposed to say
what he knows, if he knows, what we’re doing.