Nothing much has changed.
He looks right through me,
doesn’t hear a word
I say, forgets all
my instructions: where
we keep the strainer,
how to fold the sheets.
I trail him room to room,
like our ancient hound dog,
waiting for a welcome--
Come here, old girl--
careful to walk
around furniture
I now could well pass
through, wondering
what trick to try next.
He may lift his head,
as though sensing
a barometric shift,
a thickening of air,
but it's always nothing.
He shrugs, carries
his empty cup to the sink.
I still wrap myself
around him, rubbing
my cheek against his
stubbly morning face,
and can almost feel
the scrape of whiskers.
And sometimes at night,
dazed by dream, he still
reaches out to me,
before I resolve
into my true form:
a lingering memory.
I’d rattle dishes,
flick lights on and off,
whoosh past his ear
if I thought there were
a ghost of a chance
he’d notice.
Copyright 2007 by the Tipton Poetry Journal.
All rights remain the exclusive property of the individual poet and may not be used without their permission.