By Meg Freer
seems amazed to see airplanes fly by
the window in the common area
of the big-city nursing home,
says she can’t bear to leave her husband
in this room, where men she describes
as sad, ugly and vocal, wait away the days
through dull momentum of routine.
She tells him of a historic house nearby
whose sign says it has been rehabilitated,
and he wonders if it had bad habits.
Strange things occur in this place, where food
tastes like sadness, where it’s difficult
to explain to residents why a busy day
won’t cause blood clots in their lungs.
One woman taps thoughts on the table
before her ideas fossilize. Another burps
a baby doll, tries to close the railway
tunnel doors to keep out the cows.
The quiet ones, their underused bodies
buried in ghost dunes of memories,
grow old in unusual ways.
Existence here will sustain itself by friction
against the sides of nearly empty bowls
reserved for her husband and the others
who can no longer enjoy small pleasures
like polka dots or the promise of lentil soup.