This urgent care centre is low on air.
The little here smells of disinfectant,
witching perfumes, cleaning agents and fear.
There’s no laughter factor hanging out here.
In a time of Coronavirus it is like facing
a firing squad; twenty-something or so
soldiers in death’s army raring to go
with a burst of invisible bullets;
every nostril is a breathing menace,
like the barrel of a machine gun,
every sneeze, every cough can kill.
Everybody is a potential mass murderer.
Everybody is dying from the fear of death.
The doctor will see you now.
‘Waiting Room’ by Nnorom Azuonye was first published in Poetry in the Plague Year, an online anthology publsihed by Poetry Kit