"You cannot have water."
In an intensive care unit in a county hospital,
nurses wearing white uniforms surround her.
_____"We will deal with the emotional disturbance later,"
they whisper to each other.

Over and over on an overhead television,
the nurses watch grisly news segments about dismembered bodies
found in a local man's meat locker.
There is no way she can turn it off.
_____"He seemed like such a nice man," the neighbors say.