Poem for Display in a Hospital Waiting Room

Posted on May 28, 2008 by Dave Bonta
This entry is part 6 of 15 in the series Public Poems

The doors swing
both ways; be careful.
From either side,
the other looks like out.
This mystery your body
is like a Klein bottle,
all surface, no way in.
From the inevitably
flawed models, it appears
to intersect itself:
it dwells within the without.
That’s why the wind —
or is it breath? — can’t
be held, & you need
a fourth dimension
to lose those edges
called sickness,
to become whole.

Series Navigation← Poem for Display in a Public LibraryPoem for Display in a Municipal Building →

About Dave Bonta

Dave Bonta (bio) crowd-sources his problems by following his gut, which he shares with one quadrillion of his closest microbial friends --- a tight-knit, symbiotic community comprising some 500 different species of bacteria, fungi, and protozoa.
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6 Responses to Poem for Display in a Hospital Waiting Room

  1. Joan says:
    May 28, 2008 at 2:22 pm

    I liked this one very much, and I didn’t even have to go infinitely loopy trying to figure out the insides and outside of a Klein bottle. :)

    http://www.kleinbottle.com/classicalklein.htm

  2. Rachel says:
    May 29, 2008 at 8:18 am

    Gorgeous, Dave. Those first lines are breathtaking because they’re so simple but they pack such a wallop.

  3. sarah b says:
    May 29, 2008 at 2:53 pm

    I haven’t warmed to this series the way I did the “tool” series, but this poem is a real beauty.

  4. Dave says:
    May 30, 2008 at 7:20 am

    Joan – Yes, it is a mental workout, isn’t it?

    Rachel and sarah b – I’m surprised to hear you liked this one, actually. It’s my least favorite of the series so far!

  5. sarah b says:
    May 31, 2008 at 8:23 am

    I guess it reminds me of the day, many years ago, when I was leaving the hospital with my brand new daughter, and a very very old person passed me in her hospital robe, and we exchanged a look that said it all.

  6. Dave says:
    May 31, 2008 at 9:13 am

    That right there would make a far better poem that my arid metaphysical exercise.