He's Sick, and Maybe Dying

We make a ring around
her and for
awhile I think we think

this is working

this is transcendence. The
children, the beach, the black
ducks diving through the high waves

and sun on all of us
limbs running, flashing, swinging through the air.

The park and the ice cream truck. Our
friend the folk singer
one night only
in an old New England church
we have tea
and watch her
and each other's faces listening
shine, shine, shine.

We see it
life goes on
and we touch our foreheads together
its so hard
and yet joy. Small joy.

Except it doesn't. This is
this part
not the way it is. Scans and results
and the ring cannot hold. Now she is
the point
and we come in to her and
go away and
come in to her again
what kind of a shape is that?

I will tell you:

The shape of a woman
at midnight
lying in her bed
with the wrench of
terrible and airless sobs

and no one there to hear them.