Reading Poems to Stall the Hospital

The world works, a poem

Of Sandra Simonds

Insisted, Even

From here. . . . The world works

Wonders, it added,

Then walked back. The world

Works / but not today.

Not for me. Functions,

Maybe, the world does.

Works-for-me implies

Something good enough.

Works wonders suggests

The miraculous.

Not today argues

For an exception.

In a sunny chair

In desert winter,

Aware of failure

Of the internal

Functions of organs

That might as well be

The world, given they

Can’t be abandoned,

Parts of the world work.

The propane heater,

The fridge compressor—

Those things work wonders,

Make a mockery

Of entropy, dance

In defiance, but

An emergency

Room looms, merciful

Nightmare. How world works.