I watched her sitting there,
slumped in a gray wheelchair
beneath the blinking
schizophrenic fluorescent light.
She waits silently.
She waits patiently.
Her fading blue eyes
now stare upon stained tiles
that mark all her days here...
But she seems oblivious to her location,
this place where you can almost hear
hope crying out for familiar
voices to become real again,
to awaken her from the bad dream.
In this cold and lonely place
hearts yearn for hands
to do more than push,
feed, and lift them
in and out of bed like a child.
She needs and deserves
much more than this.
But I know, most likely,
she will not receive it.
A shaking floor fan whirls,
lifting the stale, pungent air
around her and suddenly
she smells an ocean breeze
from some famous New Jersey
shore line she once strolled
with lover in hand...
She tastes the salty mist
from the very sea itself..
It tastes like a tear....
It tastes just like a tear.