elder care | Diamonds in the Dumpster

My aunt. The young one.

Stylish, with it, uncompromising about her home.

Tonight the silver and Franciscan tableware,

the paintings, grand piano, the tiger maple secretary

keep each other company while I state her name

at this center for intermediate care.

A state-of-the-art equipment room dominates the building’s front:

soaring ceiling, panoramic views,

cascading water sounds against marble walls.

I pass through unfamiliar families in the visiting area–

a gowned woman sits in straight-back chair.

I step over the uneven ring of a carpet stain in the hall

and knock at 202 (where my aunt’s name

has been correctly lettered with double “r”).

Her voice comes through the door, the first

it has noticeably aged in almost ninety years–and weak.

I am not prepared for how small she is.

I try to make her bigger in my mind–

fuller through her cheeks and brow–

and remember how vigilantly she stayed brunette.

I find her eyes.

We converse an hour before she reminds me

how handsome I was with shorter hair.

I guess we are even now.

Manners/Nurture demand she share a snack that arrives

and we would have at the end of one of those drives

to an antique store or to gather dried milkweed

or the longer ones to the coast with others

(her peers among us then have died)

but a half-serving pack of Yoplait

hardly holds enough for her to last the night.

She relents to take it all from the white plastic spoon

I somewhat reluctantly control.

Find what’s yours . . . truly, danscir52

Diamonds in the Dumpster