Rehab Center

This is a place for dying.
Past the comfortable lobby,
You enter the holding tanks,
Peopled by subdued caregivers
And vacant eyed seniors.

I suspected that my buddy
Was the only potential candidate
For reentry into life beyond
The large dark-wooded front doors.

Clean floors and lots of ammonia
Could not cover the pervasive smell of urine.
They could not hide the gloom
From the seriously yellowed fluorescent panels,
Marching the length of the narrow corridor.

John was wheeled into a room
Where two others lay waiting for Godot.
A smallish man lay to his left,
Eyelids determinedly closed, whined softly.
On his right a large blond haired fellow,
Missing a leg, whispered fiercely
Into a space only he could fill.