For Joe
This is February’s last day,
yet I sit in my garden, writing.
One patch of snow by the door.
One strand of ice on the ivy.This is Joe’s last week.
He sits in his high bed, waiting.
One hard chair by the window.
One small woman in the chair.I am wearing my coat, but it’s
open. The dogs sniff at the sun.
Wintergreen leaves are curled
on the trellis. One pale cloudin the sky. Plants still stand
in the flowerbed, that should
have bent down under ice
and snow. Green is scentingthe changing air. Joe is trying
to speak. Who am I, to live
this day? Goldfish rise to
the warming skin of the water.
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