midnight arousal
dim old age memory
sees clearly
the surcease
of longing
the explosion
into the void
the black hole
squeezing normal
into a long moment
of forgotten pleasure
no more or less gossamer
than any of those
lived before

laid low by a man
with a right and a left
laid low by a woman
of mercy bereft

laid low by cowardice
at the point of attack
laid low by the memory
that brought it all back

laid low by the grifters
trading in fear
laid low by the sight
of her child in tears

laid low by the taste
of love turned sour
laid low by the knowledge
that this is the hour

laid low by a song
with no rhyme or reason
laid low by a cold wind
in our last season

laid low by false hope
for freedom's breath
laid low by satori
at the moment of death

I look to her chair
hoping to see her
looking back at me
smiling
pleased to see
that her cat and I
are fast friends.
As always
my pleasure
is only in the
anticipation of
seeing her smile
for she will not be
there again
today
tomorrow
ever.

He talks to her,
the old man,
every day
forty or fifty
times a day
probably.

She's been gone
two years,
he still talks to her
every day.

Not much in the way of
complex conversations
exactly,
mostly just
"oh, baby.  *******."

As my days
trickle away
they will say
I am mad.

I will say I've
heard your voice again,
seen your face,
laughed with you.

I look in the mirror,
into the eyes
of a dying man.
I think of her
doing the same,
standing quietly
in front of the mirror
while she cleans her teeth,
rubs dry the frizzy wisps
of her chemo hair,
wipes her  weeping eyes
with cotton pads
so she can see more clearly
into the eyes
of a dying woman.

I dreamt I was falling
tumbling backward in time
I watched as I fell
through my birth
as my essence separated
into its original pair
past Hiroshima and Nagasaki
as the mushroom clouds
shrunk to pinpoints
in metal cases
ten thousand feet
above the cities
as melted flesh reassembled
on the skulls of children
and their mothers.

When I awoke, I was older.