Under a quilt, yet legs wick cold
His sweating, disheveled head turning eyes beyond a window.
White clouds pass: alligators   abstractions
Grey clouds follow pregnant with rain.
She sets cut zinnias in a fruit jar.

They know the old man is dying.
He knows the zinnias get it too.
A lady bug wanders over the feathered halo
That are bloody zinnia petals.
Laying on a bony back, leaking fluids,
He concedes “bloody” an exaggeration, irrelevant
And muddies the waters.  The petals simply approximate red.
Silence undergirds words. 

Even now mental habits resist unwinding even now as shallow
Breathing fades.  A red bird universe waits a slowing heart  sour
Breath fogs the cool jar near his face   hands of a spouse
His lips blow gentle this weathered sky   unshackled 
Flying over a valley green, above bald hills   ancestors
Call his name    the earth of damp maple leaves fill nostrils
Darkness unfolding as light     this still moment
A luminous ground   spellbound