Patience, I say to myself

as I place the flowers

next to her wheelchair.


I hold one-way conversations,

babbling on about weather, trees,

the high prices at Panera

to pretend we talk

in a way that we never really did,

but we have time now.

I scan her room for little chores

to normalize the code-locked doors,

the dirty baby dolls in the dining area.

That day I dusted her pictures.

One was someone else’s grey-muzzled Labrador;

love gets mixed up here.

When I asked how she was,

expecting no more than a puzzled look—

Who is this person? Why is she sitting here?—

she answered, I’m fine, Kimmie.

Stay calm. Take a breath. Don’t ruin it

with your gushing, but I almost sang,

Would you like to go outside?

Our long life together suddenly devoid

of need and disappointment on both sides.

She smiled, That’d be nice.

I gripped her chair’s handles,

used my legs to push. I punched in 1-2-3-4

and the double doors opened

to the back garden. The clouds

moved so fast it was dizzying.

Fat robins tugged worms,

sparrows flitted near a hole in the siding.

I like the birds, she said,

and we sat awhile, quiet.