A flying visit

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.