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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.
