My experience in hospice.

In the hospice, I noticed
how the world
around the dying had shrunk,
down to a bedside table,
some photographs, I recall
an ornate hairbrush
on a crocheted doily…

The head nurse said
their world shrinks down around them
as they dwindle down and away
to a skeletal frame,
the feet it seemed to me
stayed the same,

I said being new, what do they do
and how do they act?
They die as they lived Chris
she sagely said,
it is all in the order of things
this shrinking down,
discarding the belongings
of a crowded life,
until the time when the room
is filled with familiar faces
only they can see,
that was a comfort for most
well, it was for me.

C

To Sabrina, a very wise woman.