White-yellow bony face
empty eyes unfocussed into distance
robot-like jumping limbs
long soundless minutes.

Then words run out,
strange, foreign-sounding syllables
without sense or understanding.
Some frothy milk spills splashing.

A grin, the eyes focuss fierce:
my name! He recognizes me.
I try to tell something but
he is gone again, away in his

absent world where I am not invited.
I stroke his cheek,
the eyes do not come back.
He needs to sleep, says the nurse

and wheels him away.
He does not look back
I am forgotten.
Let's clean the milk mess.


Marjon van Bruggen
October 2017