Rusty Hinges

The hospice door was a bruise of brown paintswollen in its frame. Inside, the air tastedof disinfectant and old dust shakenfrom an album spine. Thirty winters stacked like cordwood between us. Then his armsopened like parenthesesto hold my name. Donna.A noun dissolving glaciers. When the call came, gone, I reached,past pronouns, past the staticof unopened [ ]