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Night Things
He died quietly, like a small bird landing,
lightly, a tiny flutter, and then was still.
She was there with him in bed
as she had been for two years of nights
getting up sometimes for three changes
of the bedding. She made no bed on the floor
for herself, nor did she sleep in the chair,
but slept with him, his wife of 33 years.
She changed half the bed at a time.
They did not speak.
She moved him carefully, his skeleton
draped in papery skin, his arm,
a tired hinge, limp around her neck.
After removing the damp things, she pulled
the clean sheet over the corners of the mattress,
and then billowed the top sheet so that for a moment
a perfect white wing floated above him
before it fell and settled over his body.
In the months after, when she was alone,
often she rose in the moonlight, drifted
to the closet for fresh linens, carried them
like a baby back. Then billowed that top sheet,
watching it descend lightly on an empty bed.
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