His grooming strikes you
the way a green golf course in winter
calls out
for a long long
glance.
His love of it speaks
no words,
there’s a shyness in him
toward the art
though he entered the world
knowing
its schemes.
Even when the nurse wheels
him to dinner,
you must look at the man
with waves of white hair
in the knobby whelk sweater,
those dark eyes open and blank
as a mounted stag,
but my oh my,
what class, what rank.