Twenty TVs echo cacophonously,
each tuned to the same
station, half lagging
two seconds behind.
Smells of medicine and piss
coat the walls, air.
Vacant-eyed women sag
and melt into their busted
easy chairs. Others
pace the halls or stand
in their doorways, full
of waiting.
They are ready to tangle
me in sprawling webs
of stories, when I come by
with my mop.
They are ready to show pictures (this is my son, this
was my husband)
dog-eared, creased and thick
with fingerprints,
old red lipstick
imprinted on ghost faces.
None of us are sure
how we ended up here,
me, cleaning, them
living. In their rooms they sleep,
rotting softly with their fruit.
I pick up discarded
banana peels, apple
cores from underneath
their beds, we each
dream ourselves
somewhere else.
Cassandra Baliga is a graduate of Purdue University Fort Wayne with a B.A. in English. She’s had work previously appear in The Red Booth Review, Confluence, ANGLES, The Lucky Jefferson, and Cold Mountain Review. She is also a two-time winner of the DeKalb Snowbound Writer’s Poetry Contest.
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