At the hospital that was a shopping mall 

I wait in the former food court to see my dermatologist. 
A cell phone dead zone so everyone stares into the
greasy mirror of locked screens. The spectral imprint
of free sample bourbon chicken, an olfactory haunting.
A nurse walks out of the old Hot Topic and calls us back
in pairs, puts us two to an exam room. She confirms
our birth date and coughs directly into our open mouths. 

Days pass. The doctor asks us to agree on a single
set of symptoms to avoid confusing the AI transcriptionist.
I hold my fellow patient’s hand as the doctor sprays his 
warty knee with liquid nitrogen. There is nothing
for us to do with pain. It’s not “for” anything. My fellow patient
writes me a prescription for a free Subway footlong
with the purchase of any Apple device. A text message
from my insurance company denies the claim I haven’t filed yet. 

My 6-8 week follow-up is scheduled for Junetober 51st. 
Following the arterial exit pathway past the nursing unit that
was once a Sears, the morgue that was an escape room, the 
Starbucks that has always been a Starbucks. One can be
sick and well simultaneously. This is, in fact, the natural
state of things. Outside the pediatric unit that was once 
a Build-a-Bear a chain gang of child convicts waits 
to have their polio vaccines reversed. 

In the empty cavern of the parking garage I press the unlock 
button on my key fob and a chorus rises, the immortal screech
of every bat in the elevator shafts, every bird nested in the 
skylights, the roaches and mice in the subfloor feasting on the 
leavings of private equity strip mining, the black mold
in the ventilation ducts and the severed roots of the pecan grove
beneath the foundation,
all of them singing
in a single voice asking me to 
please rate the quality
of the service received, 
on a scale of 1-5.