Sister's Room

How can she live
in that puke green room
with only that one barred window
to look out of?

How can she sleep
in that narrow steel bed
on that thin mattress
under those scratchy sheets?

How can read
by the cold glare
of that fluorescent light on her ceiling?
How can she stand its constant hum?

How can she bear people looking in at her
whenever they feel like it
through that square of chicken-wired glass
in the door?

The only good thing about this room,"
she tells me with a choked little laugh,
is that there isn't
one single pink thing in it."