Safety doors shut hard

on the desert heat outside of

the hospital ward where her husband

waits, telling a dream to the white wings of his sheets.

As suddenly as they meet

he is himself again,

no longer the ashen traveler lately withdrawn

from the dead, but a man whose arms

receive her arms and the small of her spine

and the richly wired bulb of her head.

Each of them speaks, recasting

the bones of half a century. Her hands

stroke his. His eyes welcome hers, two lovers

snared under droning fluorescent lights.

He whispers how like the animals he has become,

unable to plan, helpless

to say where he will go.

And then he's gone.

Slung like sticks upon the bed,

she holds him close as if to hold their living in.

Before she stands she settles

the crease of his lids, kisses

his stiffening lips, and rethinks eternity.

The shape of it shifts from what they've said

would be release

to months or years or worse

confined to memory. That the ordinary

will get too big: his unlit pipe, food he liked,

books half-read and cracked at the back.

His arms forever opened wide.