Fiona Sinclair

Day Tripper

At first, a horror film thrill at the razor wire that
garlanded the hospital. Sat in the waiting room
holding her breath beside the other out patients
who were unexploded bombs liable to go off
‘BANG’. Scrabbled in her bag for a book as
defence against the man in rumpled clothes who
tossed random phrases at her like a lonely kid
trying to entice someone to play ball with him.
Looked up eagerly each time a consultant or
therapist greeted their clients with the impeccable
manners of maitre D’s over looking the foibles
of the very wealthy. But after several appointments,
she and her therapist remark upon the weather
whilst navigating the hospital’s computer
game of locked doors and forbidden levels.
In the coffee bar watches with animal indifference
the in patient waitress slowly calculate her
change as if it is foreign currency. Eats
sandwiches in the grounds where squirrels
caper and occasional screams issue from acute
wards indigenous as the cry of sea gulls by the coast.


 


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Fiona Sinclair’s work has been published in numerous reputable publications. Her second collection is due out at the end of this year by Indigo Dreams Press. She is the editor of the online poetry magazine Message in a Bottle.