[tracilicious]

Ok, here's the draft I'm turning in tonight. In a week or two we'll workshop it in class and then I'll revise several more times. Thanks tons for all the input! I'm still welcoming suggestions if anyone has any.


Bonanza



The musty smell in the hallway,
of bleach and spongebaths and adult diapers,
was muted by the clack of spoons
against plastic trays.
Each compartment filled with pureed pot pies
and blended cookies.

The more mobile lined the hallway
in wheelchairs and walkers,
staring at me as if I were some sort of apparition,
mouths agape and eyes wide
when I smiled and said Hello.

Through the doors I watched the once alive
succumb to the labial caress of immobility
and the pelvic thrusts of humiliation.
Each staring up at the yellow ceiling,
arms glued to the bed,
unable to stay a thin string of drool
or hold steady the memories floating in
nearsighted eyes like astigmatisms of the past.
Pneumatic lungs stole shallow breaths.
Dumb mouths gummed for more life,
gaining moments spoon fed and white walled,
wasted in an adjustable death bed
while Bonanza blared in the lobby.


You were in a child sized bed with rail,
atrophied and face-glazed,
your legs bent awkwardly
on top of a bed pad.

There was nothing left to indicate
that you had spent your life
weathering storms so fierce
that your bones bent horizontal to the ground
like young oaks,
holding fast again and again.

There was nothing on the thin blanket
or on the cat picture on the wall
or in the way your long thin hair spread over the pillow,
that told anyone that your spirit
was so magnificent and so bold
that it had the gall to leave your body
ahead of you.

I kissed your forehead,
said the sweet and poetic
things that one might say to the dying,
and placed my hand on your slowly pulsing chest,
trying to divine the exact count of beats remaining.
I wanted my last words to you
to be heart-achingly profound
but none came,
so I simply said Goodbye
and walked ghostlike back down the hall,
overwhelmed by the stench
of the soft slow and dirty **** of death.