The Truth About Tigers

When you spend enough time in a hospital—
as a visitor, not a patient—
you start to learn a few things.

Like how the coffee costs more
at the first-floor café
than it does on the second.

But it’s free in the fourth-floor ICU,
where there’s an honest-to-God espresso machine.
Outpatient surgery on three
offers a complimentary pour-over.

And if you befriend the nurses,
they might let you slip into the lounge,
where snacks and caffeine
cost nothing.

You’ll learn other things, too—

Like how, one afternoon in the cafeteria,
while drafting a poem you might call
A Visitor’s Guide to Free Coffee,
a young mother and her son—
his head bald from chemo—
will walk in.

You’ll watch his face light up
over a bowl of cereal
and feel ridiculous
for thinking about the cost of coffee
in a place built to save
the most vulnerable.

The boy will beam at his mom,
thrilled by the simple gift of Cocoa Puffs.
She’ll smile back—
brave, bone-tired—
and lean in to kiss his pale scalp,
her whole world on the edge of crumbling
behind those worn-out eyes.

Note: A version of “A Visitor’s Guide to Free Coffee” was first published as a prose poem at Six Sentences — July 2025.