He Pointed To Her Picture

Disease embellishes those with resignation
and poverty the garment upon which it is
worn or worn out even though there are ample
lesions into the body that the wondrous
bandages might destroy by filling
the measurements in as days go by,
no one can recover the last few pieces.
There are poems about birds and love,
poems about poems and even about words
but few indeed are the poems about
the unfortunate lot waiting in their rooms
for the caregivers to arrive with washclothes
who will try to remove the stink and prepare
the bedside tables for the long afternoons
in the prison of stroke and trouble.