Descending to the city
over the bed of a ravelling ropy river
flanked with bare poplars and clumps of dry grass
as it cuts across a geometry
of green and orange squares,
lines of trees and oval horse tracks,
a river drawn down scoring its own course
to end at the levelling ocean;
the tip of a wing dip
a pop of pressure in one ear
and a change in the engine drone
extract me again from my book
and for a moment I wrestle my focus
from a broadly congested life
to the constricted world
of a frail
mother
in a bed
in a small
private hospital
waiting for my visit
waiting to the end.