To speak of the living like limestone,
as if they were brittle.
Alone and full, I gaze up.

Anything in the sky
 – always –
a convex void repelling me back.

Silent, I watched his ankles
dangle from the pier, swollen and blotched ––
the skin a discolored canvas

stretched over puff and bone.
And my throat closing. How to speak of his
illness without admitting decay?

We didn’t. His face towards us ––
now –– a soft presence      
through the leaves.

– Bevil Townsend