is what holds
everything together: the one-by-one
hexagonal tile
a more secure
footing for your weakening legs. With
the left foot, step
and drag the
right.
Step, drag;
step, drag. Shuffling, after eight
years, the best they can.
We are cranky,
here.
We have chosen
this chaos; last Thursday, the worst day, all the screens
and the power
off—
the tips of my
shoulder blades crawled upward.
Scared. I will never
make a good
wife. “God,”
says my
confessor, “understands your situation perfectly.” Who telleth
the number of stars
and calleth
them all by their names. The Big Dipper’s handle points straight
down. What does that mean?
You dream
rarely, now—the multiple sclerosis—but this cold spring night
elliptical
metaphors
pop right out
of the pattern: April is untrustworthy;
we have agreed
on cobalt
blue,
the curbless shower, its drain angled downward, A workman stays overtime.
His mortar’s
gray
and
gritty. That tile floor looks just like
the ocean.