THE SKINNY MIRACLE

Your neck is broken in a fall;
suddenly all plans have changed.
I'm cutting up the cookie dough
as if I am the last sharp knife
and the oven could simply quit.
It's weeks too soon for Christmas stars,
but all these iron rituals don't matter
to the coming clouds.
Bouquets of flowers line the dustless shelves,
doctrinize what fools we are --
their trite replies so garrulous
against November's stark, gray rock.

Your chin is caged in a brace
of metal and leather and foam.
Words are chores and still you have
your lipstick on as if to glue a going smile
like candy canes to packages.
You point to your walker, wincing
at the wheel marks -- these tire tracks
in times of bodies tied to war --
aging's awful evidence
unwelcome on the Persian rug.
I feel the same late at night
with crutches leaning by the bed.
Why make it with a grave so near?

Props like this belong to homes
on different streets,
yet this is where we linger now.
Yesterday's health is a skinny mirage,
the grace of snow that melts too fast.
Wind is a gossip with whispers
of death -- that fear of lazy gods asleep,
a spider to urgently crush.
The sun is squeezing lemon juice
upon another open cut -- for what you see
you can't embrace. And so you ask
your husband's wrist to draw the curtains,
mince the inching of the light.

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