Assisted Living

A cloistered chess set, an empty wheelchair,
a music box that could not sing.
Monotony was a popular resident here.
An unfamiliar face intruded, though, and
robbed the usual house scenery.
I stopped the thief in her tracks, but
she retaliated with overcast eyes that grabbed
me silently, as if I had slipped into a well.

“You’re beautiful,”
said her eyes, hungry for a smile.

There was nowhere else to look:
A shelf of dusty magazines, a cupboard of puzzles,
A belching piano that purged its last solid hymn—
untouched and emaciated.

The other house residents went on
existing, like workers drifting at the assembly line.

“No, you are,”
I retorted smugly, cautious of my compromise.

Then I heard them snickering behind my back:
A laughing clock that ticked seconds in miles,
a forgotten photograph wailing, yellow like jaundice patients,
a calendar of events that made promises like a salesman,
bargaining for the happiness of fools
who could not tell today from two-and-a-half decades ago.

“You’re beautiful,”
said the eyes once more, twice more, thrice more,
as the residency collapsed into a madhouse:
giggles from the radio made in the ‘50s,
squeals of droll ecstasy from the children’s books,
mischievous shrills from the stuffed animals.