Sitting in the V.A. waiting room, the floor looks like snow,

is snow, in my mind, waiting, this snowstorm
where I pick up my feet, curl them into the chair,
sure that I’ll be buried if I leave them there,
and hours go by in the waiting room, hours, ours,
and the wind picks up, and the walls are snow
and the person at the front desk is a snowman
and he’s cold and he stares at his snowy
computer screen and we wait and there is a man
in a Marine ball cap next to me and he looks dead,
is dead, maybe, and a nurse comes in and stabs
the air with someone’s name and he stands up
and trudges, struggling to get to her, and the moon
is seen through the ceiling and it aches for warmth
and some of us will die waiting and some of us
will live and I wait for the mispronunciation
of my last name that will save me and I see Jesus
on the cross in the snow on the other side of me
and he waits and he’s bleeding and he waits
and we’re patient, and Jesus says nothing
and the Marine says nothing but the snow screams.