Double Fugue

Today, in an oversized, white shaggy coat
she sits and reads her Shakespeare,
and slowly her sleeve drops.
Oh, all day it’s winter, but still, a shoulder

smooth as anything. Very suddenly,
I think of death. This is later,
after Shakespeare, after her.
Still, I think of death
and death is a body. A shoulder,

bare and oblivious to the world,
it brags & gleams, smooth.
Death’s sleeve slowly drops.
She sits and reads inside
an oversized, shaggy coat.

It is mid-January; the old and new deaths
of family loom over me still.
In an oversized coat, I sit
inside. I think how beauty is a body,
and death a winter like today.

Note: after a long, hard battle, I think this is finally done.