The Drop
Compare him to what he once was,
lucid, voluptuous. Can we say that
of a father? His chin, even
his nose droops, triceps flap.
A drop from a pine tree
graphs his weight against a pane,
pines lift from each other,
and sharpen air he breathes—
windows open even in winter,
especially in winter—the drop
gives its weight to the pane,
abandons itself, what little’s left,
oh gravity, mid-pane,
it has no body left to drag,
single axis, graph of the heart,
old self, five sextillion atoms.
by Jayne Benjulian
from Five Sextillion Atoms