Clinic

The lost and windblown, the inarticulate and the speechless, people who don't take their meds, people who take their neighbor's meds, dangerous people looking out from passive eyes, cheerful and grateful people, a fifteen year old mother of two, criminals in handcuffs, old soldiers with watchful family caretakers, men with sexual obsessions, some with new knife wounds, a man with prostate cancer who has been denied insurance coverage because his insurer has him listed as a female, men with old bullet wounds, a young man who has burned the word "BITCH" in the skin over his left deltoid with match heads because he "wants to own a motorcycle", self conscious hookers for "a checkup", meticulous and dignified old black men, brain damaged young men from institutions living in wheelchairs and wearing helmets, girls in tight clothing built like wasps, soft speaking street toughs, men and women working under the table, some healthy people who come for the friendly atmosphere, Arabs struggling with the language, students who want an exam under an alias, a man paralyzed by a bullet with a strangely distant acceptance, small business men who don't provide insurance for their employees either, sick people "lost to followup", many who have never had anyone nice to them or care for them ever.