In the Waiting Room

In Worcester, Massachusetts, / I went with Aunt Consuelo / to keep her dentist’s appointment / and sat and waited for her / in the dentist’s waiting room. / It was winter. It got dark / early. The waiting room / was full of grown-up people, / arctics and overcoats, / lamps and magazines. / My aunt was inside / what seemed like a long time / and while I waited I read / the National Geographic / (I could read) and carefully / studied the photographs: / the inside of a volcano, / black, and full of ashes; / then it was spilling over / in rivulets of fire. / Osa and Martin Johnson / dressed in riding breeches, / laced boots, and pith helmets. / A dead man slung on a pole / —“Long Pig,” the caption said. / Babies with pointed heads / wound round and round with string; / black, naked women with necks / wound round and round with wire / like the necks of light bulbs. / Their breasts were horrifying. / I read it right straight through. / I was too shy to stop. / And then I looked at the cover: / the yellow margins, the date. / Suddenly, from inside, / came an oh! of pain / —Aunt Consuelo’s voice— / not very loud or long. / I wasn’t at all surprised; / even then I knew she was / a foolish, timid woman. / I might have been embarrassed, / but wasn’t. What took me / completely by surprise / was that it was me: / my voice, in my mouth. / Without thinking at all / I was my foolish aunt, / I —we— were falling, falling, / our eyes glued to the cover / of the National Geographic, / February, 1918. // I said to myself: three days / and you’ll be seven years old. / I was saying it to stop / the sensation of falling off / the round, turning world / into cold, blue-black space. / But I felt: you are an I, / you are an Elizabeth, / you are one of them. / Why should you be one, too? / I scarcely dared to look / to see what it was I was. / I gave a sidelong glance / —I couldn’t look any higher— / at shadowy gray knees, / trousers and skirts and boots / and different pairs of hands / lying under the lamps. / I knew that nothing stranger / had ever happened, that nothing / stranger could ever happen. // Why should I be my aunt, / or me, or anyone? / What similarities— / boots, hands, the family voice / I felt in my throat, or even / the National Geographic / and those awful hanging breasts— / held us all together / or made us all just one? / How— I didn’t know any / word for it— how “unlikely”... / How had I come to be here, / like them, and overhear / a cry of pain that could have / got loud and worse but hadn’t? // The waiting room was bright / and too hot. It was sliding / beneath a big black wave, / another, and another. // Then I was back in it. / The War was on. Outside, / in Worcester, Massachusetts, / were night and slush and cold, / and it was still the fifth / of February, 1918.