Hospital Room Olympics
The room\'s a tangle of life\'s thin tendrils,
Jellyfish tendrils, pulsing silent in the sterile sea.
A cord for food that never tastes of home,
A screen where chefs dance, flavor lost in lights.
A lifeline squeezing flesh and hope around frail bones,
Veins sipping from a plastic vine, skin mottled, almost done.
You, tethered dreamer, and I, weaver of woolen threads,
Spy on knife-flashing, pan-clattering mirages
As you drift and bob in pharmaceutical tides.
You move—a careful choreography of convalescence,
Steps counted like a stone-skipping child\'s game.
Each stride, a tiny triumph; each breath, a score kept.
This is no Greek contest—no olive wreaths or victors\' songs,
Only the shuffling feet of the newly brave,
Flannel-clad gladiators in slow-motion combat.
We peer outside, note the sun\'s surrender,
As the room turns goldfish bowl—
Five shuffling paces mark today\'s victory lap,
The podium, a bed to which you retreat.