The Wife

Knees up under pillows
book balanced on the massed
quilts and sheets,
she reads, tea cooling in a blue and brown
mug, leaning against another fold
of bedding. When she reaches
for her pencil, the liquid leans
but does not spill.

Bifocals gangly on the table,
a white plate, crumbs like leaf shadows
in the sunlight on the floor,
she moves the tea mug there, and pulls
up her note book, flexible and empty
now for many months.

The pencil presses against
laundry and gardening cracks
in her thumb. She squints
and leans forward with her gray bangs,
now the sun has slipped to the foot
of the big beg, where a grey cat mocks
sleep, ears alert.

It is so much like a sketch, or a song,
but no one else in the room describes
the angle of the page to catch
the light. No one sees these
adjustments of paper and hand,
pillow and knee. From other rooms
she hears a radio, a bathroom drawer
thud, then another.

They know where to look for her,
should it be necessary, but
they do not come. The wife
reaches for her glasses, her
empty plate, hesitates,
waits.