Sundown

Sundown

The winter nakedness of trees
shows off their bones,
pen strokes against a darkening sky,
their blackness backlit by the
lowest cloud to hold a cup of sun.

Old men lie adrift in their beds,
famous battles of World War II
flickering on the screen, a strident voice
encouraging the valiant on—all background
to vacant eyes it once entranced.

Old women loll in chairs by the door.
One cries out, “I don’t live here. Take me home.”
Another smiles, holds out her doll.
One with a canny grin
points to a photo on her dresser.
“I snapped that handsome boy up in a flash,”
then sobs because, “I don’t know where he’s gone!”
“Ten years dead,” her sister says.

Old women want their mamas,
their babies and their men.
Old men long for glory,
their courage, and the power
that made them proud
a long time ago.

The sun descends below the land,
then reemerges,
hanging there, a rim of light,
suspended, momentarily
before it’s sucked down by the sky,
a gentle death to day, its colors gone.