There Among the Broken Things

I found her where I left her, there among the yellowed tiles and flickering florescent s;
She too, yellowed and flickering in and out.
Once she'd been beautiful, young, sparkling and joyful;
now she stared in fear at the world around her, uncomprehending.
My mother, giver of life, was now marching toward her end.

Somehow, this disease had taken her; carrying her like a bride
into the nightmare of this betrothal.
My father gone just months before; the same disease, the same prognosis.
My sisters and I mourning her living death; avoiding the rush. Inevitability,
a cancer in her thoughts and memories.

We were gone, our names unwoven from her mental fabric;
simply kind faces in the confusing chaos.
I cried as she spit hatred at the nurse and then called her darling.
Now, I sit and watch the light flicker, fade and subside;
the clock slows and stops, then ticks again.