In The Surgical Waiting Room While Let's Make A Deal Streams On TV

by Laurie Kuntz

It is freezing in the sterile white waiting room,
and I am told it will be hours, and I can leave,
come back when the doctor is done.

But, without you, I have nowhere to go.

Blaring from huge television screens
is a continuous stream of Let's Make A Deal.
The desire for more, more than what we have
when what we have is plentiful
until the surgeon tells us that he must
cut, snip, scrape, scan, and replace.

The contestants on the show are dressed
in October-themed costumes,
and want to replace all the good
they have with better –
cars, trips, lands, gadgets –
an easy life.

It is in the ease that we find comfort.

On this show, to win, a good deal is made,
like the kind I am making with any higher power
be it doctor or lord, to deal me a smile,
a thumbs up, a clean bill,
better than the bright red Mustang
that the skeleton-costumed contestant
just bargained for and won.

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Laurie Kuntz’s books are: That Infinite Roar (Gyroscope Press), Talking Me Off The Roof (Kelsay Books), The Moon Over My Mother’s House (Finishing Line Press), Simple Gestures (Texas Review Press), Women at the Onsen (Blue Light Press), and Somewhere in the Telling (Mellen Press). Simple Gestures, won Texas Review’s Chapbook Contest, and Women at the Onsen won Blue Light Press’s Chapbook Contest. She’s been nominated for four Pushcart Prizes and two Best of the Net Prizes. In 2024, she won a Pushcart Prize. Her seventh book, a chapbook, Balance, is published by MoonStone Arts. Her eight book, Shelter In Place, will be published by Shanti Arts in 2025-6. Her work has been widely rejected and at times widely published in Gyroscope Review, Roanoke Review, Third Wednesday, One Art, Sheila Na Gig, SWWIM, and other journals and anthologies. Happily retired, she lives in an endless summer state of mind. Learn more about Laurie on her website.

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