Drawing 742 by WRH, 2018
These winter stars
hanging above the veiny street -
are they darker
with the slow bath of death?
My failures of compassion
burn like a constellation of pins.
Is fire the price of kindness?
Pain the price of health?
The winters are decreasing.
Less complaints about ice.
More love
of flinty skies.
The hidden face of time
wraps around my bones,
an old coat handed down
and down . . .
I am forced to lie down.
My daughter runs
and jumps on my back
over and over again.
With my grunts of riant pain
springs of wild, green laughter
erupt from her body
and cover the leaping world.
.