It is an incessant spell of August.
Gaunt faces surface each dreary day
between white bed sheets,
pale, expressionless,
lifting sometimes a palm,
bending a knee.
At the suggestion of a speech therapist
one mumbles childhood's favorite crayons -
how they broke, trampled by feet,
and smeared streaks of colored tracks
down the sidewalk.
The man is somewhat shaved.
Pieces of isolated hair peep
from underneath the chin,
couple long ones dangle near the jaw.
His growl annoys the nurse, and in this
incessant spell August,
his thirst is quenched by an eternal needle.
The spinster picks up
a bowl of grapes and urges
her aunt to taste.
"You have little appetite" she said.
The woman wiggles and squirms,
and finally throws up thin green watery paste.
The one in wheel chair
leans sideways to prevent
himself from sliding down.
In this confining heat
there is no one around
except his wife, who lies still in bed.
Silenced by a stroke,
she can only blink at him.
Neither of them expects August
to drag on this long.
They all look forward to rain.
One of them dreams of an orange moon,
tugged in the lapel of a black tuxedo sky.
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