for Elizabeth

She lines up her pills on the placemat stripe—
two bone whites, a blue thyroid, a yellow caboose,
pours granola, slices peaches, (just ripe)
and licks from her fingers their prodigious juice.
She swipes the newsfeed, reads the clues
of the daily crossword, looks out to bird
feeders for inspiration and whose
depletion reminds her of the flitting word.
She takes her walk, plays piano at nine,
sews more quilts, teaches her grandchildren
how to bake biscuits, brings wash from the line—
the perfect industry of a nesting wren.
Her companion knows he’s damned lucky
to have shared in her modest odyssey.
                        

Wake to a house colder than cool, lie in bed like a brass 
knight on cathedral floor, hearing maidens weep;

Has the furnace died?

Quilt colors, twinkle of window saints,
are warmer even in this obscure light.

Jerked by bugling beeps from the kitchen;
Coffee at your service. Sugar? Cream?
I sit, feet dangle into the abyss of dark rug

and hunger forth into the moods of thought,
a barter of three carbs for a verb.

The dead take their answers with them.

Still, I wonder how many spiders starve to death
waiting for the world’s happenstance.
A letter to my body reads: an x-ray is worth
a thousand pains; five aches scheduled for today.

I never had the power to make people uneasy,
am the hoarder’s nemesis: necessity is not always pretty.

The dead take their answers with them.

Supple me into your heart, your kindness;
even as feasible miracles are exhausting.

Keep repeating repair, repair in a self-help tone;
Dawn kisses me another time; love surprised upon me.

The dead take their answers with them,
she says, let us be at peace with ours.