Old Age Gets Up

Stirs its ashes and embers, its burnt sticks

An eye powdered over, half melted and solid again

Ponders

Ideas that collapse

At the first touch of attention

The light at the window, so square and so same

So full-strong as ever, the window frame

A scaffold in space, for eyes to lean on

Supporting the body, shaped to its old work

Making small movements in gray air

Numbed from the blurred accident

Of having lived, the fatal, real injury

Under the amnesia

Something tries to save itself-searches

For defenses-but words evade

Like flies with their own notions

Old age slowly gets dressed

Heavily dosed with death's night

Sits on the bed's edge

Pulls its pieces together

Loosely tucks in its shirt