Geriatric Home

The antiseptic corridors exude
a nasty odour. Heavy doors
lock automatically; one needs
to know the code to make them open up.
Once past the corridors there are
the wards -  the living-rooms that play
at being home; worn, plastic potted plants
are on the tables; there's a radio
that plays old schmaltz, though hardly
audible, topped by the noise
the timestruck people make. They slump
in chairs and wheelchairs or they walk about
and rant and rave if they just
don't vegetate, like that. The smell
is terrible - stale urine, disinfectants; now and then
a richer smell wafts from the bedrooms
when someone's nappy's changed.  I seldom go;
the frightened face behind the frosted glass
hardly resembles my mental image
of what she used to be, before the grim
extended period of deterioration that set in
with the first haemorrhage, before the sudden
fits of anger and the slow forgetting,
before the painful explications and
all the family turning a blind eye
to what they hoped was incidental or
not true.  Her husband had a fearful time of it.
She's not too badly off now, string blindly
at some unfocused middle distance, safe
within the care of friendly people who
have never known her any different -
"she's really sweet, she is, the poor old thing -"
I seldom go there now. I sometimes ring.