Going Home

Going Home

“I’m going home,” you stated,
patting my hand but your eyes
reach past me through glass
panes of the window – past
where the tulips strain through
cold hard ground, painted
hands reaching for the sun.
“Just as soon as I can find some
nice girl like you to help me there.
They have wonderful home health care.”

I offer a patient smile and help you into bed.
It always seems the same thing,
each new day; each shift that I return,
you see a new worker, just arrived-
to be welcomed and befriended.
I know it all by heart – the age you are,
your children I have never seen –
they live far away with their new families-,
the home you left after a painful fall
you have described with its pale cream walls
scent of lemon and old rose petals –
but I still don’t say a word.

Days only count on the paper calendar
hanging on your wall with pictures of dogs
and horses. You used to write appointments
and dates on it - but now it simply hangs –
taped to the wrong month, like the blank TV
screen you keep waiting for to turn on by itself
or you look for the remote - lost before I found you.

I never believed you, smoothing away wrinkles
in your quilt, (you seemed to feel each one
I missed) but time proves you wiser than me-
now standing beside your bed again – dinner tray
in hand – and listen to your breathing, your eyes
almost closed. My hands clench then threaten
to lose grip. I force them to set the tray down
and reach to touch you awake, but through eyes-
doors left ajar in your leaving -
. . . I see the silver blue of clear sky.