No Easy Answers

For the elderly and infirm

Photo by Zahra E on Unsplash

What is the answer,
when her body is broken,
and she has lived way too long,
unable to decipher between
then, now, and the future?

When she is
too hard to care for,
and fingers point
in every every direction?

It’s your fault,
it’s their fault,
why don’t they
do this that or the other?

Her pristine room is decorated nicely
yet it smells like a homeless camp.

Hurried attendants don’t have the time
or concern to take care,
not rewarded by their paltry pay,

So she lies feeble, incontinent,
laying in a pile of soiled sheets
unable to do for herself anymore.

Yet we keep her going,
siphoning off the resources
between all of us,
the blame continues to rotate.

Are we are not meant
to live this long?