March 2, 2021

nevertheless

How is your life? Is it howling, looking like it might take something down? 
Deb in a hospital bed, her ankle wrapped in towels. 
On the way back from the hardware store, I said, I just don’t want to break anything. 
We’re all holding our breaths, waiting for something concrete to arrive. 
We have grooves behind our ears. All the edges are gone, the handholds. 
We have become people who could lose it, fall apart simply out of weariness. 
Outside, the windchimes are whipping against the branches. A slice of lawn peeks out 
between two swaths of snow. It’s hardly Spring, but time is advancing either way. 
This new crease to my eyelids. This slight groan of my body. Nevertheless, 
a solitude I’ve been craving for years. The person I hope to remember when it ends.