Between the humming receptionist and bodies
impatiently shifting on chairs, I am cocooning 
its plastic shell with my palms, as if to protect
warmth from surrendering to air. Its character
is strangely at peace, lingering in citrus gold
or blazing the elegant heat of topaz, its stream
shyly tilting in the bottle on my lap. I marvel
at my accelerating fears, how they appear not
to intrude the sanctuary from which they stem,
the bottle just another object on which we can
impose, blame, and justify our insecurities. In
a week there will be conclusions. As the nurse
invites me in, a valued guest in this roadhouse
of too many rooms, I take a moment to regret,
quietly convincing myself that there is a price
for everything. There is a price for everything.