Summation

    by Carol Sanger 

Look at her. Take a long look at this woman 
who sits like a question mark glued to her chair.
Her teeth lean like gravestones, her hands
bent like brackets. She has so little left to hold.

She has no one to help her keep track of time
or medications, having outlived family and friends.
Fed soft foods from a spoon like a baby, she drools
as she masticates with her tongue.  You might say

I see her - she’s dying, an empty shell of what she was.  
But if you were to draw close, her mouth to your ear, 
you could hear the ocean and smell its salty secrets
as her bodytides flood and recede and flood again. 

So I’m asking you to reconsider. 
Look past the old sweats and slippers. 
Take another look, a good one this time.  
See her for who she is – a woman still living.