the room is filled with
old lady stank
the kind that assaults the nose
and crawls down the throat in
an angry attempt to
drive you right out of the building.

she says the walls are “peach”
but I can see behind the cracked flakes
that it was once yellow.
I just grunt and sit at the edge of the bed
determined to hate both colors on
principle alone

I don’t want to be here, in her stank
I don’t want to look at the cracked
and pitted
desert that was once her face
I don’t want to strain to hear her
wavering and whispery voice

Yet here I am,
surrounded
by horrific images of a ****** Christ
nailed ironically to the walls
rosary beads hanging from
every candle in the room
and the Blessed ******
fighting
for space on the walls next to her
zombie son

where’s her god now
I wonder sourly as I strain to hear
her wavering and whispery voice
relate how nice the orderly was
who
washed
her prune of a body this morning.

hell, forget the god
where was her family
or her friends
or her nut job preacher

there’s only me
carrying my own stank of
whiskey and smokes
sitting here on the edge of
her bed
listening to her stories