Captive in a comfy chair
in the resident’s lounge,
she serves me bitter coffee
with watery milk.
Not the way I like it.

The others stare absently
at their sippy cups,
remembering
the days of dancing
down the aisles,
deciding what’s for tea.
choosing favourites,
The ‘meals for two’ special offers
that came with a bottle of wine.
To share.

No alcohol here.
Dining room misery instead.
Tasteless food, mushy in my mouth,
school dinner puds
washed down with childhood squash,
all consumed to the tune
of coughing and cursing,
and the shout of instructions,
and endless questions from
lost minds.

Wheeled back to the room
for my ‘nap after lunch’
we pass the locked route to the garden.
The clematis needs pruning,
and the dead roses still droop on the bush
out there, in that life giving air
that once I breathed
in my own beloved space
of borders and pond,
and sandpits and slides.

I stare from the window
people pass below.
They hurry to work
clutching their coffees,
driving their cars,
catching buses,
pushing prams.
Their hectic lives an inconvenience
but what I wouldn’t give to
be busy once more.