Waiting for the minutes to crawl by 
until my time to enter the waiting room. 
I stare at the screen, push the green box, and wait 
for the nurse, whom I never see, only hear, 
and try to remember how she looked 
when I last saw her seven months ago. 
 
Her voice asks for my blood pressure and pulse, 
available on machines I keep at home, then asks 
if any meds have changed.  Even though I say no, 
she goes through the list of medications, allergies, 
appointments, and tests coming due, seeming 
determined to find something I’ve forgotten. 
 
Done at last, she assures me the doctor will see me 
on my computer screen as soon as he finishes 
with his current patient.  He is busy.  I wait again. 
I pick up a pen next to paper, jot down my thoughts. 
More minutes pass.  His face and chart finally appear 
as he has to see me, sick or not, every six momths. 
 
He smiles as he reads the nurse’s notes, seems pleased, 
then asks the usual questions about old symptoms I’ve had 
and new ones familiar to COVID patients, but not to me. 
 
He asks about my daily routine and I describe my life 
in quarantine for twenty-eight weeks, with family zooms, 
OLLI classes on webinar, virtual trips to other countries, 
work on my novel, short stories, and new poems. 
He asks if I’m depressed, an epidemic among seniors. 
I want to say I have no time to be depressed.  I do not. 
 
He says he’s never seen me look better and tells me 
I am doing everything right, to keep up the good work, 
to call if I have symptoms I no longer remember. 
He smiles again, pulls up his mask, waves farewell, 
and moves on to a patient in his office. 
 
He has a packed schedule.  A job.  I do not, but 
he does not know that while biding my time, 
I wrote a narrative focused on  
waiting for minutes to crawl by. 
Now he has his chart, but I have a poem.