I love Teresa Stouffer’s compassion for the older folks who sometimes inhabit her poems. Teresa is a member of my poetry workshop group in State College.
Wheelchairs circle
the worker
dispensing
pills on plastic spoons.
I step over a man’s legs,
drool-soiled napkin on his thigh,
kiss Dot hello on her whiskery face,
a woman’s sticky hand tugs me.
Perfume and bowel odors
mingle, cloud the hallway.
I breathe through my mouth.
Meds swallowed,
Dot spits out,
“Are you in a hurry?”
In her room,
I snip the hairs on her chin.
Dot says,
“All I do is sit
and eat.
And I don’t feel much like eating anymore.
When will you be back? ”
– Teresa Stouffer
P.S. New prompts are up on the Prompts page.
Sarah Russell Poetry 
this describes it all so well –
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Yes. Sometimes the poem is just in telling what happened.
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I read an article recently by a physician who was concerned that we have grown consumed with prolonging life at the expense of quality. As I read, images of old people dying at home filled my head. The absence of tubes, beeping machines, and sterile surroundings was comforting. I don’t want to die in the hospital or have my life prolonged artificially. I don’t even want to live in a nursing home. Dying an unnatural death doesn’t appeal to me in any way, but I may have no choice. All I can hope for is peace and gratefulness at the end. The way my mom died.
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I heard someone say that to die with dignity, you should be allowed to die in character. I’m afraid that’s what we take away with the tubes and machines. Life at any cost isn’t life.
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those last two lines …
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Yes. Dot has no time left for small talk.
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Reblogged this on Stevie's Law and commented:
Teresa is a member of my poetry group.
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