She died. Worse was her undoing,
the tongue’s unravelling, the memory’s flat battery
coughing in the night someone has taken my orange juice,
someone has stolen my shoes. Up,
down, either was difficult, it’s not
her any more I hear my voice say again
through the narrowing months of her vision
that could see bright clear to a winter day.
There was a war, she worked in the harvest
of wet beets, soldiers came in and out her gate,
in and out of her kitchen, hot white mugs
in their hard cold hands.
Where are they all now? she asks.
How many ever came back?