Floating fish
The four of them had been there always,
old forever, children with no foothold
in the future. Clean, fed and medicated,
sculling round a concave globe, each free
to change the world beyond at a touch
of the remote – whoever got first go
and first to go was Millie. It came as no surprise.
She’d failed a lot though no-one knew
if seven score years and ten were counted
on the fingers of two hands and came to nothing
much to be upset about; here’s a cup of tea
and look: it’s nearly time for Neighbours.
Next bed along Lil gulps her last, won’t shift
her eyes to see so when they finally close
the lids and pray she doesn’t breathe a word.
Rowena spends the day sat in the doorway,
shrieking. They screen her off so she can’t tell
who’s passing till it’s lights out
with curtains drawn around her bed
to block the empty place diagonally across
where for twenty thousand nights and more
Millie sobbed into her pillow. It’s silent now
Rowena feels no longer there’s a need
to say, over and over, “Poor Millie.”
Unnoticed over on the other side
Grace pulls on the standard-issue gown,
shuffles down the corridor and calls,
in fits of giggles, “Whoo-oo, whoo-oo,
I am the ghost of Millie,” not as she was but,
had they asked her, as she would have lived.