1947–
October 9, 1970
The same automatic doors
and the same white-haired volunteer,
the elevator and the corridor
with its antiseptic odor
and hushed voices
door after door
down one more hall and again
through the double doors —
but this morning
the lone nurse standing
before the door of 246,
and immediately inside,
the view through the window
of the other wing,
its dozens of identical windows,
and here the pale green walls
paler today behind the blank
screen of the TV
protruding from the wall
and on the movable
metal bedside table
the familiar plastic glass of water
with its bent straw
peering out like a periscope
through its plastic lid
as if only a hidden eye
had full view of the bed
and the body of the woman in it
who was once my mother.