HER JOB IN HAND
He’s losing his grasp of language.
And, as he sleeps, memories free themselves
like fish through a ruptured net.
He greets every morning
knowing a little less
than he did the night before.
And he spends most days
in his veranda rocker
greeting strangers who know him by name.
His wife sits beside him,
fashions his nods.
his mutterings,
into a tighter grip of his hand.
His eyes are still her map of the heavens,
but with ever more darkness,
less and less stars.
