The Rogue Patient

     Anthony Borruso

​

I haven’t been happy since the hospital. One hall

and a flock of nurses, their faces, crow’s feet
and white eyes over smokestack scrubs. Sorry
for them, I’d ask about their days, their kids,
their weekend plans. I sat by the window with one,

looking out into the parking lot at stray weeds

straining through cement. I asked if this was

a form of punishment or of help, she told me,
a little bit of both. At night we would line up for meds.
I thought about the movies, the rogue patient
who pretends to swallow, sweeping the mind medicine

under the tongue. I swallowed though. The brain

glazed over, the mind muddled grey. The nurse squinted

at my open mouth, pity billowed out in clouds.