Poetry by Ann Christine Tabaka
Dust motes dance on sunlight
streaming through a dingy window.
Rusty mailbox, empty, always empty.
Cadaverous cobwebs mocking
back at him from a peeling wall.
He sits alone in his room, sifting
through dim memories of
vibrant life. His wife is gone, adult
children too busy to visit, friends
moved far away. Yet in his hands,
he holds proof, that his life was once
real. Photos and newspaper clippings
fill his world. Universities, Naval ships,
careers and family, all a distant past.
He hungers now, not for food, but for
human touch. As memories fade, so
does he. Closing his eyes, he drifts
off into that other world. As the mail
truck drives by, not stopping, and dust
motes continue their last ballet.