Thursday, July 15, 2021

The end of summer


This bowl of oatmeal looks pathetic          

and I'm the one 

     who prepares it for him.  


It waits and cools on the table 

     as my love is wheeled down the hall 

     toward the breakfast room.  


Bits of dried apple and puffs of cinnamon float

      on this mush the way lotus

      and spatterdock 

drift on a pond.  


His eyes fall on it. 


The spoon and a napkin wait 

      with me for him to take the usual 

      four bites though I hope he will eat 

it all this time. 


My love is so thin. 


But not his face. 

      Still boned and squared.  


Not his hair: still full, still thick 

      like the sweetflag around a pond.  


But oh God he is thin. 

He is disappearing. 


My love is a twig

      on which a single blossom clings

      to summer.