i can hear her cry
when the lights go out
my rock gone soft
on the couch where
she sleeps

there is little peace behind
her eyes bluing dim
but she tells me of
the good dreams
when they come

like buying hotdogs on the
corner of central park
laced fingers with her brother
who died of brain cancer
weeks after surviving the war

she said she never needed photographs
every face and time was vivid inside
but her memories are going like her hair
gray and thin with the same dementia
that took her mother

her body is on autopilot
as her mind drags behind
and god is she coiled
tied in knots with generations
of deep hollow lives

for days she lay awake
on the couch in our living room
staring at the shadows
of picture frames that rise
like graves, everywhere