The doors swing open

Hospital disinfectant clogging your pores

Flickering lights

The endless shuffling of paper slippers

One room is not empty:

one room, on Valentine’s Day,

and she has Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

She’s gone with her motor skills

She’s gone in the eyes

In the memory cortex nervous center

She’s choking on water

She’s choking on air

She’s choking in her sleep

She’ll be dead by early tomorrow morning, when the

sun comes up to tell a teenager she’s gone.

Heimlich Maneuver.

Don’t forget the Heimlich Maneuver.

No last words. She’ll slip away,

mosaic of the past, present, and future.

The sun shines and the bees pollinate, and what can you do,

at any age, but leave the hospital and choke down all of this,

and never speak of it again: go to sleep, and remember how she went,

and that’s that.