Some of the residents sit outside
in their wheelchairs
in the hot, humid air with no breeze.
He prefers watching old movies 
on a TV that his social worker
gave him because she knows 
he needs a diversion.
He has three roommates
who don’t communicate.
They’re burned out
and have lost their minds.
An old man across the hall 
shouts over and over,
“Help me. Be a sport, help me.”
The doctors say my brother
doesn’t belong in this place, 
although he is ill with HIV
and has to live on the county.
I’m miles away in California
It’s been six years
since I’ve seen him.
His eyes are dark; 
his body is thin.
He doesn’t mention 
that his T cells are changing.
I show him family photos
and he laughs out loud 
at one black and white 8 x 10 
of my mom and her two friends,
waitresses, working the night shift 
in the fifties at Howard Johnson’s.
He says, “They could’ve been
a sitcom like Alice on TV.”
It hurts to leave him behind
But, he smiles, holds me tight, and says, 
“Hey, thanks for stopping by.”