It's called "The Moon of Mind Against the Wooden Louver".
The visitors in room 8509 stand in a circle
chanting something Russian.
The Hasid's down the hall have come in segregated silence.
Men roll their thick white stockings in the lounge.
Mother and sisters still between the door and bed each
time I pass.
We step across invisible or merely transparent
shadows making up their mind to speak, to intervene, to call.
A firm hand, like the AM nurse sponging the last few hours
of confusion from the somehow childlike emaciated limbs
and face.
She lifts a bride, I swear, swath and sheet,
back of fresh linen, and then clips
the bottoms of the flowers, keeping the family at bay
while Barry naps in her unbridled trust.
We lack.
Not without prayer.
Not without the pluck and humor of the song
your bones thrum while the blood still
leaves their broadside and their flank.
I kiss your bones.
In mind, each round of pinnacle of rib is white.
Against an O'Keefe sky and light, they're lingua franca.
Such thinking heals the moment.
It divides us for its duration like a cyclone fence
from our despair, our rage, our bitter, greedy fear.