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Rotten caviar

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 April 2024

Miguel JuliãoOpen the ORCID record for Miguel Julião[Opens in a new window]
Miguel Julião*
Affiliation:
Cuidados Paliativos, Equipa Comunitária de Suporte em Cuidados Paliativos de Sintra, ULS Amadora/Sintra, Portugal
*
Email: migueljuliao@gmail.com
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Information

Type
Poetry
Information
Palliative & Supportive Care , Volume 22 , Issue 6 , December 2024, pp. 2238 - 2239
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press.
You moan, old lady,
Lying on the gurney in the cold hospital corridor.
“I’m sorry. Yes, home.,” you repeat from the depths of dementia.
You moan, and no one listens.
No one listens in the modern world of deafness and blindness of souls.
They pass you by in the corridor.
Preaching compassion with cell phones,
wireless touch
filters pouring for their souls
de-humanized
de-tached
on/off
buttons, buttons
press, press!
sliding fingers across the screen.
Delete.
For you, a lost corridor.
A passerelle of indifference for them.
With hors d’oeuvres served aside.
It smells bad.
Like something rotten left forgotten in the fridge…
Rotten caviar. Yes, they are.
They pass you by in the passerelle.
Glitter souls.
Small sized scrubs squeezing their fat bodies under.
Nails, collars, and bracelets.
“Tap, tap!,” the sound of pinkish clogs.
Everything shines,
but not their souls.
Compassion in the garbage can,
with rainbow colored gums as companions.
They pass and are all deaf,
deafness of the heart.
It smells bad, like rotten caviar.
They don’t see you, old lady…
They worry about something else.
The light in the passerelle flashes from their cell phones.
It´s all in their heads, their loud and colorful world.
No heart to feel you.
A heart just
to beat, beat…
to beep, beep…
press, press!
fingers across the screen.
Delete.
They do not know how
to touch your wrinkled skin.
Crippled hands,
Crippled souls.
In the passerelle,
it’s a disease of indifference,
a myopia of humanity,
a tongue of silence and loneliness.
Smells like a swamp.
Rotten caviar.
It’s not you, old lady.
You are a flower.
Always.
No one sees you blossom in the gurney in the corridor.
Fat indifferent bodies.
Looking down at the floor.
“Tap, tap!,” their beautiful clogs.
Chewing gum with their mouths open.
Fashioning scrubs and candid lab coats.
It’s not you, old lady.
You are a flower.
They are,
We are,
Rotten caviar.