In an empty room on a lonely afternoon
(In a room on an afternoon), the most
Exquisite touch is the dust. The pulse
Flips like a fish on a dock and the hips
Ache, in any position they ache, the chest
Makes it worse with cough after cough. This,
So people claim, is what it means to age.
But it’s not. The body is more background
Noise to go along with the rumbling trucks,
The hum of the household machines,
A thump from the basement as another body
Stumbles over books. It’s all background
For an awareness freed from conversation
And checking the news. The weather stutters
And then there is this: when the afternoon
Is finished, the words gather in the pit
Of the memory and, here we are, replace it.
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