By Virginia Ewing

Her baby-bird eyes are pleading.  I smooth down her wispy hair.  It sticks, sweaty to her scalp.  She takes the pills from me, her fingers fumbling, arthritic knuckles knocking each other out of the way.  I put my left hand behind her neck, supporting her head so she can let it fall back while I pour water over her thin cracked lips, blue with veins.  Her tongue smacks against her lips, her bare gums.   She tries to shift in her bed, and winces, again, as a bedsore breaks open.   Her nightie slips off her shrunken shoulder and she grabs at it desperate for dignity.  She laughs; a quick inhalation that shakes her whole body.  She says it again:  They shoot horses don’t they?

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