Good news

I don't want the cold hallways,

their chill seeping underneath 

my thin regulation gown and settling in my bones.

I don't want the nurses,

with their tight, sympathetic smiles

and soft voices, telling me where to place my hands, 

my feet.

I don't want the peeling decorations on the walls

for people half my age, smiling tigers and bugs

and elephants, 

as if this place is any cause for celebration.

I don't want the laminated paper bracelet,

digging into my skin, cutting off my circulation,

a constant reminder that, for now,

 I am chained to this place.

I don't want the grey Boston sky--

only hours from home, but it feels farther--

sad and lonesome through fingerprint-streaked windows.

I want my house, I want sunshine,

I want long, meaningless afternoons in my backyard with him.

I don't want my spine,

well into its fourth year of curving and contorting itself, warranting

countless days like these.

Of shiny-clean floors and sad patients and doctors' worried faces,

hours of hell

before getting in the car and forgetting any of it ever happened.

And when I learn it's three months now, three months until

I can say goodbye to all of this for good,

I laugh and laugh and almost cry,

because how could such good news be delivered in a place like this?