Before visiting, I’d stop for ice cream
where young girls with young muscles
would flex deeply into cold hard cylinders
and pull out great frozen globs of cream
that would soften beside me
on my drive to the hospital,
chilling my hands while I waited
for an aide to buzz me in:
Where she would sit holding on
to a synapse tucked away for just this
moment of unthinking pleasure,
this tiny oasis amid neurological tangles and plaques,
a spoonful of sweet cream to her lips
and her mouth would spring open,
like those automatic doors at the market,
triggered by a mindless eye,
her mouth inconsolable, grasping
at a disembodied spoon.