Waiting room recollections #1

January 18

The windows reach up two floors, stare
with filmy vision into York Street streaked
with cars and buses and blurred buildings.
The glass is fingerprinted and smudged
with the exhaust of countless admissions of guilt;
their stale breath still hovers in the filtered light.
still sticks to the expensive leather sofa;
I sink further down into its gummy clutches
and wonder what the hell I am doing here
waiting to exhale my life story to someone
who can't even keep his windows clean.
How dirty his will his hands be?

* * *

In contrast cleanliness, the office is dimly lit,
painted in the right shades of magenta
and tangerine to inspire condemnation, admission -
I could confess to anything here
and convince myself of its truth.
The multi-faceted multi-coloured clock
counts the minutes of my narrative,
the seconds of his questions, the hour
it will take before I can leave this
pastel purgatory of dusted knick-knacks,
straightened shelves and books,
carefully-aligned pictures, and
the perpendicular placement of pens
to writing pad. Nothing is out of place but me