Winter Light
“One sees flame in the eyes of the young, but in the eyes
of the old, one sees light.”
-Victor Hugo
Winter, stripped down and simple
is framed by webs of white-feathered branches
spiked with rime ice
a canopy luffing in afternoon wind.
Worst thing about getting old
is that no one ever touches me.
Emma unzips her robe,
an invitation to let me into her life of wheel-
chair trips between bed and bath
the swallowing of pills, rolling of lips
lolling of tongue.
Your fingers are gentle like my husband’s.
I remove her gown
her back dry and freckled
talcum-powder white with one mole
on her right shoulder that I’ve learned
to skirt around. He has asked me to marry him again…
but I don’t know…he has eight babies…
Coyly she laughs, her eyes kissing a young man
on bended knee, rose extended. Cloth fitted
over hand like a bandage
I wash skin fragile as a leaf.
Ancient face rises to meet me
a communion of skin
and light reflecting off chrome bed
and her love keeping vigil
from the dresser. Light blazes into prisms of melting ice
like sun in a grove of aspen, air luminous and blue
shimmering with opalescence
the familiar sheen she falls into
before the long night.
(from Minnesota Review: A Journal of Committed Writing, 2003)
