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The Visit

My jaunt through over crowded hallways
       past bodies grouped like gulls gathering
       a grey murmuring

       patients on overdose
       their creased faces like glaciers streaked 
                                                     by warming
        pink white rings that circle their eyes
                                                      rabbit pinched
                                                      unfocused
        glances not easily discarded

Henry, slumped in his wheelchair
       his body uncoupled like a skylark
                                                     cut from song
        thin shoulders falling to trembling limbs
He greets me, barely audible
       words that leave soft traces
       that sometimes choke on their own silence

What oozes forth,
       fragmented stories of acting on the stage
       till footlights dimmed
Time vandalized history
Roots in a cushioned land

Beseeching, he asks "Roll my wheelchair to the
       train tracks. Leave me there."
 Panic closes in like shutters
       to darken the wood of smiling
I wedge words, can brook no paths criminal
A quick embrace to soothe unmoored grief
       to appease the unprotected

My blunt exit (slowed momentum) 
       on floor stickiness,
       waste-brine that coats my soles
       anchoring displacement



Poem revised June 9, 2021

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