Help me edit this poem please

[tracilicious]

Here's another edit:



The musty smell in the hallway
of bleach and spongebaths and adult diapers
was muted by the clang of metal spoons
against plastic trays filled with pureed pot pies.

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

I peeked through the doors and witnessed the once alive
succumbing to the labial caress of immobility
and the pelvic thrust 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
near sighted eyes.
Pneumatic lungs stole shallow breaths.
Dumb mouths gummed for just a little more life,
gaining moments spoon-fed and white-walled,
wasted in an adjustable death bed
while Bonanza blared in the lobby.

When I finally reached you,
you were so small and frail,
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 draped on 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 head,
and said all the sweet and poetic
things that one imagines saying to someone on their death bed.
I put my hand on your slowly pulsing heart,
trying to divine the exact count of beats remaining.

I wondered if I should find some really profound
last words to say to you,
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 fvck of death.