Posted: Dec 1, 08 9:38pm
A young couple passes me in the fluorescent corridor
Our eyes avert
So as not to admit one another
To our private anguish.
A futile effort
Because I am the young woman, and she is me,
And I am the young man, and he is me.
We wear the same shoes along this sterile mile
Now home to our dying loved one
Where dignity has succumbed
To the haunt of raspy breath and regurgitation
Silent confines, open doorways revealing
The specter of hollow expressions on yellow-tinged faces
Last wishes trapped on parched lips
And plastic tubing, the fashion of the day.
A room with a view is reserved for The Family
To meet without greeting
And dine without tasting -
A retreat without refuge.
We wait without hoping
And watch without speaking
As the orange sun melts into the frozen lake.
Our few guilty moments of solemn reflection ask
Will it be fire, wrath and desire
That sweep us to smoldering embers?
Could ice suffice* as Earth’s eternal tomb?
Or does it end here
With no pageant or flourish
One cell at a time
On the cancer ward?
