
He had spent a lifetime, it seemed,
in and out of hospitals, but mostly in. The halls
his normal walking route. The Great Room his Getaway.
The windows opaque, used now as mirrors
for when the nurses came in to change the bandages
and he watched over their shoulder while
lying on his side, thinking for all that might be outside
the window, these walls, the gray Hospital—
it would never be as simple, delineated as his life
as Patient. Did he want to get well?
What a question.
This poem appears in my new book ROSES IN WINTER. Available for sale on Amazon & at my Bookstall.