The following is a poem from Drive: The First Quartet by Lorna Dee Cervantes, published by Wings Press in January.

In the Waiting Room

A dead man, yellow margins
and a date, lamps and magazines,
rivulets of fire. It got dark,
the inside of a volcano. Over
people, photographs
full of ashes, 'round and 'round
a waiting room, an appointment
slung on a wire. Too long
to stop that nothing stranger,
a big black slush, the fifth
of falling, those awful similarities,
a different pair of hands.
Then, I was back in it, of falling off.
The room was bright. War,
a loud cold wait.

—"In the Waiting Room." Reprinted from Drive: The First Quartet by Lorna Dee Cervantes (Wings Press, 2006). Copyright 2006 by Lorna Dee Cervantes. www.wingspress.com [2]