Poetry - Portraits

Carefully sitting on the stool, she counts out some change in slow motion, pauses, and tries to remember why she’s there. Electrified bleached-white hair shoots out from her white powdered face. A slight furrowing of her brow disturbs her immobility. The counterman waits impatiently. She concentrates, then whispers the order he already knows. "Coffee regular and a sugar doughnut."

Alone with him in his room, his eyes closed, his breathing slow, I became mesmerized by the rise and fall of his chest. A precarious balance was sustained between life and death by this slight involuntary movement. Suddenly his breathing became irregular, his eyes opened wide and he took in quick gulps of air. I held the oxygen mask over his mouth till his body relaxed and his head sank back into the pillow. He smiled and held his eyes on me - glazed expression, weary resig