I bring the watered-down wine to my mother\u2019s lips<\/p>\n
hold the plastic cup at an angle, tilt the straw.<\/p>\n
Pleasures remain, and we practice them.<\/p>\n
The body in water.<\/p>\n
The anticipation of spring.<\/p>\n
Hummingbirds.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Above the deck, a string of lights levitates<\/p>\n
below the sunshade like a globed consciousness<\/p>\n
working only in the night.<\/p>\n
Below the deck\u2014small animals,<\/p>\n
bundles of rustling nerves.<\/p>\n
How many worlds?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
How many dimensions hiding<\/p>\n
in our perceived walls? In the dark of summer<\/p>\n
we watch insects give themselves to fire<\/p>\n
and we take in my father\u2019s stories with more wine,<\/p>\n
more water. When it is time, we will rise together<\/p>\n
on the homemade lift into the living<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
room. We will wheel down the hall and<\/p>\n
my brother will cradle the arc of my mother<\/p>\n
in his arms and lay her to sleep in bed.<\/p>\n
This is the geometry of dying\u2014<\/p>\n
and our grief is a closed circle<\/p>\n
concentric in its company but radiating<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
like the fire does, and the glass festoons do,<\/p>\n
and as all light will, arriving<\/p>\n
from anywhere and touching anything.<\/p>\n
O, the starlight\u2014<\/p>\n
when moved by a turbulent atmosphere\u2014<\/p>\n
how it spreads.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Pleasures remain, and we practice them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":5181,"template":"","categories":[9,49,119],"tags":[6,1459,1460,206,614,209,1461],"class_list":["post-5179","article","type-article","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aquifer","category-literary-features","category-poetry","tag-aquifer-the-florida-review-online","tag-dying","tag-end-of-life","tag-family","tag-kirsten-shu-ying-chen","tag-mothers","tag-starlight"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n