Picture This

The woman with bipolar

wears the same blue baseball cap

she wore the last time she was here,

and the same face,

browned and lined and toughened

like a well-used baseball mitt.

I remember her from the other times,

her voice raspy as steel wool on metal,

her posture like a small half-broken bird,

claws still tightened around a thin branch

to postpone her inevitable fall.

She says she’s Michael Jackson’s sister,

that she prays to Father God and Mother Mary,

who speak to her in celestial voices

that other mortals will never hear.

She’s 42, a few years younger than I am,

but she has seen celluloid demons,

walked with flaming angels,

watched the history of the world

come to pass in the palm of her hand.

Tonight, staff will try to quiet her

with a cocktail of Haldol and Seroquel.

In one of the seclusion rooms

she’ll lie breathless on the vinyl mattress,

amazed at revelations and visions of herself

seated next to Jesus,

her skin lit with gold as if from within,

her eyes shining with the glory of eternity,

while the charge nurse peeks at her

through the small rectangular windowpane

of a door holding her inches

from certain divinity.