He leads her in, through a maze
of off-colored couches and armchairs
to a table near the register,
and sits her down in a seat
and maneuvers her feet flat against the floor
and rubs her arm and says,
I’ll be right there. I’ll be right back.
She sits dead-still like a tree
which moves in small bits at the touch
of wind – the rustle of an arm,
a small flinch of eyelid as the window a/c shushes
air across the still pockets of age
that settle on her cheeks,
and on all the corners of her body.
He orders a chocolate milkshake and slice
of cake, sits it down in front of her
and spins the straw around the frosted glass
while she stares the same stare,
and he wraps his creased fingers around hers
and moves her hands in his as though
they were the same branch, the same tree.
She opens her mouth with the sound
like fabric rustling, and lips moving with
effort, a stale repose laying still
across her face. There you go, there you go,
that’s a good bite, there he says and shuffles
the fork to her lips, smiles with all the effort
of wind, a gust or breeze that settles just so.
He wipes crumbs from her face, he lifts her
from her place and thanks the woman
At the register who calls them by name,
And who watches them leave, the same
Way - an arm beneath her elbow, a hand
Against her back, a pause to open the door
and there you go, just like that.
She’ll settle into the car seat
and watch trees, hum quietly at the radio
While they pass the streets she used to know,
And they’ll turn toward home and she will
Not know to thank him for anything when
They get inside, or to ask him questions
When he tells her his thoughts.
He’ll love her with the endurance
Of pulling up her socks
every morning, and she’ll be a tree –
rooted in the same, unchanging season
where the wind rustles the bloom,
her memory, and shades the ground the tree’s in:
of two roots promising not to move.
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