A new poem I’ve been working on.
MARION ANTICIPATING
After the fall, flat on her face,
tripped by a rough spot
on the old linoleum,
she has lost her will,
meaning abandoned, speech garbled,
cell upon cell resigning to failure.
The pocked whiteness of her skin,
blanches pallid as chalk,
thin as transparent vellum.
She sleeps, mouth open,
arms crossed at her chest,
arranged to enter a realm
we among the mostly living
cannot see. Not yet.
Lying on her back,
her lips form an O.
The dream we inhabit together
is disappearing, but,
for now, both of us present,
the dream keeps dreaming.
I walk up close, tip-toe.
Is she breathing?
So still on the sofa,
mumbling, incoherent conversation
with her long-passed husband.