A poem and an anniversary

Many of you know that I haven't written poetry for awhile. Well, one day when my students were penning their own stuff this summer, I used the free time to write this. It's going to be published as part of the University of Michigan's 40th anniversary of the Residential College (where I got my BA in creative writing).

Waiting Room
by Meredith Franco Meyers

In the pale waiting room of
St. Joseph's Mercy Hospital,
My mother reads old copies of
Ladies' Home Journal

At times, she looks up at the wall clock.

I sip a fifty-cent hot cocoa,
finagled from the vending machine
down the hall when someone--
an Alzheimer's patient,
a relative consumed by grief maybe?--
forgot their change.

The air reminds me of the public pool
where mom took us as kids
when the wall thermometer at home
turned red from the heat and
the weather man talked of humidity
in a voice made of bottled sunshine

Mom's coffee cup, stained lipstick red
on one side
Me, hands crossed in my lap
Hot cocoa all gone

My brother, in pale gown,
down the hall
a heartbeat away.