No Smoking

(narrative poem for class 2/7/2012- from a classmate's descriptive paragraph)

She is squished with three others in an old hospital room,

With an IV attached to her; it drips with the rhythm of the slowly ticking clock.

She lay in that starch white bed surrounded by

 used tissues, crumpled and covered with her blood and mucus.

There was that feeling of wanting to be free,

 to throw open the window and

Let in the cold, cold air.

Instead,

 I walked out of that room and into the hallway.

A man stands beside a dirty window.

I press my nose against it hoping for some air.

Instead I inhale smoke as the man puffs on a cigar.

“Vietato Fumare!” in bold black letters on a poster that

hangs on the other side of the hallway.

Her language is gone now,

Except for that phrase.

Memories of her hacking coughs hit my heart;

 guilt and loss roll over me again.

I want to scream:

“Can’t you read?- Vietato Fumare!”

As if saying it now

Would have changed

What happened  last week.