Hospital Visits

There is nothing you can do,
my therapist reminds me, again.
Hospital visits
are glorious walks
along tinted viewing walls of life, love and loss
on display
on white walls and whiter wards.
Those who enter for visits often
scurry out
aching for a cigarette
to medicate their troubled thoughts, that hum
in their heads, that thumping
in their chests.

There is nothing I can do
but remind myself, again
year after year after year
to keep my visit short.