Maria and I mop floors
at the hospital, dump
buckets of dirty water
swirling a drain
in the janitor’s closet,
and nurses in white shoes
glide on our long, shiny,
pale-green hallway. Maria’s
almost Aunt Caroline’s age.
Her second son, big energy
but the one well-behaved, at 15 got
quiet, then angry, then missing.
Police can’t find him. No tub
of cash for a private search.
2 years on, Maria thinks
she seems cuckoo – nuts –
sitting on a break
in she thinks
her gone features.
George Shelton