The Autumn-Things

[eredien]

And when they're through with the autumn-things,
the tests and all the late nights of hospices,
the couch will smell like leaf mold through its springs
and perhaps you'll welcome winter.

You I'll think of caught always in the picture frame
on my mother's dresser, young, strong
gorgeous as any woman in her prime
and smelling as I will, seventy years' time.

You I last saw framed by origami paper
and white alley brick of my old home. Young, we
talked of friends, light verse and music.
Coma, now. In only half year's time.

In your welcoming of winter, little shame.
Little, likewise, in what we,
for our still-warm bodies' turn,
may--selfish--miss, cry for,
live on, and do.

For M. and S.