Some at the rehab wing are always doing
a lot worse than you, rolling past
in their wheelchairs with sickly green blankets 

not quite covering raw knees, maybe a bit 
of drool leaking from a stroke-twisted mouth.
Some faces you peer into and it’s like sticking

your hand out a car window, the wrenching 
blank wind. Newscasters on the TV
in the waiting room are all beautiful and clever  

even with the sound turned off. You want
to walk faster than you can. The chipper 
metallic music always dimly playing

doesn’t help much, nor helium balloons
with flowers painted on them. Each corridor 
looks exactly like the next, but some rooms

you glance into once, then they flare in mind
for years, like welding torches. Bad art
on the walls goes with the music, at least,

plastic flowers in plastic pots, and the famous
bad food—but still you want more of it, more,
like a baby reaching for the moon.