Dresser scarf drapes across her toiletries
Like unexpected snow. I start to dust,
Place the fine cloth where it belongs, beneath
The cool mirror and the Jean Nate bath set.
She lies between the unpressed linen sheets
And will not let me touch her when it hurts.
Fearing my silence is the cause of her pain,
I sit by her and ask, "Are you sleeping?"
She answers with a squint, "No, dear." We read
Until I cannot hold still or keep awake.
Once in a while she lets me bathe her feet.
They are firm as the inside of good shoes.
When washed they look smaller, as if they had
Dissolved like soap into softened water.
Her hair is a fragile, breathless halo
Falling, the fluff of a ripe dandelion.
I soothe it, and now she makes a circle
Of the captured white, winds it on her finger
Like the ring of her life. I say goodnight.
(Spring 1976 Tucson, Arizona)
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