Perhaps

I mourn for the woman
I learned about today
from a friend’s poem.

The women who went to a nursing home
merely because her husband/caretaker died
and had to give up a teaching career she loved.

Perhaps this was in days
before paid assistants.
For myself, get 16 paid hours
in any 24 hours period,
more than enough to insure
survival of both self and cat.

Perhaps, too,
she is from that
older generation of gimps
that don’t understand the value
of accessing the hard one rights
to “I’m the boss PCA services”
and thinks no would come assist
her as arranged.

I can you
from experience,
people will do a lot for $12.48 per hour,
especially in this economy.

But then again,
perhaps she had no one
to teach her about alternatives.

God knows no institution
help enforce the civil rights
we fought for, went to jail defending,
and too often, literally, died for-
because it will cost them one cash cow.

If this woman,
is still among the breathing,
perhaps I will find her
and we will talk options.