learning how to wait
we Americans don’t know how to wait
like other people do:
burning long days
in the broiling tin-roofed tuck shop shack
waiting for a grubby kid
to buy a single pack of candy
comfortably squatting flat-footed
in the consulate’s courtyard for days
with only cigarettes for diversion
staking out the harbor
(any harbor anywhere)
now and then querying transport?
sitting in the Singapore doctor’s office
waiting for #1750 to appear
in red dot digits outside exam room A7
in the lands where queuing is a verb
an action one takes
an inescapable reality
they know (sometimes)
how to give themselves over
to the suspension of time
savor the need to not do
for an interminable spell
