Wheelchairs colliding in the lobby
at dinner hour, the elderly rolling in from a brief
breath of fresh air as they were pushed
through the atrium to an elevator whose doors
slide slowly to let the chairs and walkers
in, and just in time—never to miss the social hour,
the health once-over and the all-you-can-eat
in two sittings. They take to their rooms
extra bread, tea bags, napkins. If no one
knows what’s next, these aged know
they know. I can hear her breathing over
the walker, a lung-scraping where once
was a lightly rasping wind and before that
a breeze and before that an inaudible intaking
and expiration that involved no chest-raising
and collapse. The smokers are benched
beyond the door. Each person gets worse
in her own way. She who tottered on heels,
petite, positive in outlook, outliving four husbands,
finds only slippers fit now. It takes the morning
to prepare to go to lunch, what with making a fist
to make her fingers bend and reaching
high in the air to grab a little more time. All
the mothers have seventy-year-old babies.