The Therapist

I've become a gray man in a gray room, professionally sensitized
to my patients' problems. I am a radio telescope attuned
to their voices droning on about their alien complaints
as if they're visitors dropped in from Sirius or Andromeda.

And I am complicit in this farce, for do I not nod
sympathy or, alternatively, encourage them
to divulge their insecurities or petty jealousies
while snow sifts onto the tram tracks outside?

A Green Goddess eases toward the Pier Head; once again, I wish
I could hop aboard a steamer home to SA or be that guttersnipe
hurling snowballs. Instead, my training sentences me

to listen to Julie fantasize "bonk the therapist." Why doesn't
she recognize me for what I have become: a masochist shackled
to her tragedy, retold each Tuesday at 2:00 PM?

Christopher T. George