Part of last night
was a miracle. I
felt the shiver
of change. My head
lifted and the sky
was not the morning
on the earth.

I know how you
watch each other
and listen for words
and wait, but I
am going on a
journey beyond that.
My departure is now
and I don't care.

Away, everything is
new and mine, so I nod
only agreeably and
look away. I will
no longer satisfy,
transformed am I
into a far flung
wanderer.

She said,
"you ought to get out
and try it
in the real world."

"I tell too many lies,"
He said.
"Reality is
not my thing."

She said,
"You should try
my dear
in the real world."

He replied,
"If I go
to the real world,
will you be there?"

Wizened from years of bingo smarting,
tiny Mina stands at the TV table
removing video tapes from their boxes
scrambling their titles. Being helpful, yesterday
she portioned the milk into small glasses
and added thickener. Junie wanders into Jennifer's room
and samples the bed like Goldilocks. Peter
the man from the sidewalk bench shuffles in his
carefully supervised shoes with pants falling down
sucking his lips and wiping them with
extruded tongue. Miranda, bursting with cheer
bounds about the hall responding to one
important phone call after the other,
awaiting her groom to be. Lean and imperious
Irene points as she furrows her cool
administrative brow. Michael the big man
with hard loud voice blocks the passageway,
shoving his wheelchair into legs, crying for cigarettes.
The make believe tea party for dolls,
the speech which comes so earnestly and
dissipates on a journey to chaos, the sapped silence,
the mystery friends to populate a mistaken spirit,
the learning mangled, the scary rage of a helpless man
all happen at once.