Maybe memory is a crossword puzzle: seven hollow
squares for his favorite baseball team, ink-bruised
from the chamomile spilled by Vaseline marinated,
jello-jiggle fingers (like the cherry cup on his tray—

grapes brain-shriveled & bobbing on the meniscus). Memory,
choking off, tight: a casual turtleneck
strangling—well-intentioned yarn knit round his jugular,
but maybe if it loved him it’d slacken. The nurse says

You have a visitor, & his dark-lipped smile looks like an Oreo
shell missing its cream. He wants
to play rummy & I wonder how that swiss-cheese
cortex, that grey walnut graveyard, can remember:

Queen of Hearts is ten points, Susan. My name’s not
important: for once the word isn’t alphabet-soup-snarled
as it thrums from his chayote-crumpled mouth.
He always cheats & never wins, but he shuffles

the deck anyways: muscle memory, he winks,
tea-defeated & varicose-gnarled hands
jitterbugging over the Queen of Hearts.