Celestial Discharge

by Kevin Ridgeway

the angry sun
beats against parking lot tire streaks
that lead to the
linoleum, fluorescent hell
of a suburban emergency room
one person after another
wheeled back
into curtained rooms
bleeding,
unconscious,
conscious,
semi conscious
the ripple effect
of injury and disease
rolling into
the fuming theater
of medical science
a man screams
as injections
are plunged
into every orifice
of his defecating
ruptured body
another man had
the post-holiday blues,
and leaped
from a freeway off ramp
dressed in his
Christmas presents
his skull caved in
and unthinking
overhearing
the hawk nosed doctors,
the male nurses
admonishing doomed drunks
the flying man made his exit
from the world
"celestial discharge"
one doctor muttered
scribbling notes

the doomed man's
family will buy him
a new gift
a neatly wrapped
plot in the earth
or a stocking stuffer
cremation urn,
dust and teeth
rattling against tin