On the lock-down floor of Memory Care,
we who visit watch the clock, eye the exit door
as the frail and failing souls we once knew wilt
in wheelchairs parked under fluorescent lights
close to the big screen that blares the squeals
of Wheel of Fortune winners, and we wonder,
what if we could lure these frail and failing souls
to the wild, to the edge of the sand, to the edge
of the land, to the shifting borders between
what we know and what we suppose?  What if
they could revel in the earth, in the air, see
the sly arch of the anchorless moon, hear
the cryptic sea crack its silky whip, feel
the sky tremble, release its mighty current of tears?
Would this save them?  Bear them home?

Irene Fick has been writing poetry her entire life, but seriously during the past seven years. Her first chapbook was published in 2014 by The Broadkill Press; her second chapbook in 2018 by Main Street Rag. Her poems have appeared in Panoplyzine, Gargoyle, Poet Lore, Philadelphia Stories and other journals. She lives in Lewes, Delaware where she is active in two writers’ organizations, participating in free writes, readings, workshops and critique groups.