A bird ready for flight

In this painting, you get the bed right by the window —

the one where the light looks in and it’s blue, endless sky

and you can enter and leave as you please

because you are no longer wheel-chair bound on the floor —

a bird ready for flight.

Here, there are no days when you get bored —

only Bob playing piano in the big recreation room below,

Dunkin’ Donuts coffee with two creamer served fresh every morning,

and your friends never die and leave you beind,

and you don’t have to die on us either.

This is the new home of your dreams,

where you can take warm baths and sleep in a California King-sized bed,

and the food is just like the Italian takeout we had as kids,

eating dinner on paper plates at your dining room table.

In this place, your hair is always cut the way you like it

and you always feel heard —

no more waiting for help to use the bathroom, no more mess,

and everyone calls on holidays, just like they said they would.

This is heaven, a place with no bounds!

This is your perfume right beneath my nose as I paint an open window

where there once was a bare wall and your remote stretcher bed,

TV-facing and half folded.