By Kirby Light

There’s a crow on top of the hospital.
He’s the only bird out.
I smoke a cigarette
and watch him up there.
The sun is coming up.
But there are clouds and it’s cold.
People
dressed in scrubs flow into the hospital
and people
dressed in scrubs flow out of the hospital
as time eases towards the end of night shift
and the start of day shift.

Some of the people are a little fearful
that they may lose their jobs,
others having been there too long
to think their jobs could be lost.

They come in with cigarettes and coffee
and books and pills,
prepared to bleed
more days together
and then when they leave
they’ll go home to their TVs

and kids
and houses
and husbands or wives,
bleeding even more days together.

They go on like that for a while.

I finish my cigarette, put it out,
Wipe the ashes from my scrubs.
As I walk across the parking lot
I can hear the crow on top of the hospital.
He’s cawing.
Then he flies off.
The cawing disappears somewhere down the road.

It sounded something like laughter.

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