the night before

your hospitalization i’m folding your laundry, you apologize by the stove

judging your own steel edge, cursing all you cannot control, too much

bile, too little dopamine, fingers locked over your eyes like bars I cannot

loose nor reach beyond; later you will rock, hugging the tiles in the late

hours while i dread morning, and each next day so

i roll and tuck your socks, square your sheets, your knee torn jeans i

take on wilds you cannot tame, compact and stack them, patti smith

and joan jett the pretty reckless hendrix prince folded and framed by

boxers and bras and i carry the laundry

the length of the hall, set the basket hushed at your door, on the other

side your sprawling form, limbs that tangled with mine when you drifted

off in onesie stripes, hands tugging my loose curl, milk breath pausing

and purring in sleep i meet the floor

and lock eyes with the doorknob, the threshold a caesura, after which i

will hear you as a hallway voice by the nurses' station, treaded socks

pacing the phone, a cup of meds, a locked steel door and not enough

words to penetrate the distance