Wonderland

Wizened from years of bingo smarting,
tiny Mina stands at the TV table
removing video tapes from their boxes
scrambling their titles. Being helpful, yesterday
she portioned the milk into small glasses
and added thickener. Junie wanders into Jennifer's room
and samples the bed like Goldilocks. Peter
the man from the sidewalk bench shuffles in his
carefully supervised shoes with pants falling down
sucking his lips and wiping them with
extruded tongue. Miranda, bursting with cheer
bounds about the hall responding to one
important phone call after the other,
awaiting her groom to be. Lean and imperious
Irene points as she furrows her cool
administrative brow. Michael the big man
with hard loud voice blocks the passageway,
shoving his wheelchair into legs, crying for cigarettes.
The make believe tea party for dolls,
the speech which comes so earnestly and
dissipates on a journey to chaos, the sapped silence,
the mystery friends to populate a mistaken spirit,
the learning mangled, the scary rage of a helpless man
all happen at once.