Assisted Living by Richard Dinges, Jr.
She wants to go home,
she says, something missing
in that breath, not a child’s
whine but an old lady’s
hopeless yearning, a statement
she knows will find no
fulfillment, no future
in it, soft petals
slipping from a dry blossom,
while I wonder how many
homes she has had all
those years, how many
she still remembers, which
one she means now, another
lost memory, how to move
this one last time.
