For Ralph
his body
claims Life as a Joy and a Right
slim &
sere, barely raising the covers
turning
always to the empty space beside
seeking the
elusive scent of her hair
the warm
indent left
when she rose to put on coffee
gone these
37 years, but every morning
coughed up
by Dreams on the shore of Today
he turns to
her
to her shade
in the
fullness of one hundred years
the way
flesh melts and skin thins & tissues
so easily
torn & life force spilled
not like
those fine fat days
they grew
from young & juicy fruit flush
with roses
music laughter
all
unknowing of the shrinking
drying
the flyweight
husk of memory slipped lonely between the sheets
awakening
ever in some other place and time
a constant
surprise that the songs and singers have all faded
into drawn dawn
eons light years of the texture of ghost memory
that scent
of coffee brewing
eyes closed
he holds for one more beloved moment
the wisp of
waking to her at last again
I love, he breathes
and lifts
the fragile tissue-clothed rack of brittle bones
stretched
& wizened ligaments
to the ache
of another day
fluid scents,
liquid air
fluorescent colors
of another spring on earth
colors cast
about like brilliant Holi powders
the broad
sweep of a life
narrowed to the distance between two chairs
jazz nights
passed into heaven’s band
the strains
of those old songs caught
like passing
flutterbys
unexpected
in a sticky web
struggle
with abandon to escape
one hundred
years, and such a Time!
the tenor of
lives evolved
into
fulfillment of every science fiction fantasy
quiet small
town memories in quaint black & white
frozen in
antique photos
elder values
joyously abandoned
in a new and
global world
provincial
touchstones, for better or worse
explode
we took a
bite out of the beating heart of the planet
© pamela twining 2016
