My father takes smaller steps
in his eighties, his body leaning
slightly forward as if against
a continuous wind. He turns
and the wind turns with him,
the impoverished rumor of it
always in his face, blearing
his eyes, bothering his ears.

There's no way around it,
this ghost of weather thrown
out of the world, rushing
through the gape of doors,
so much farther than they were,
over the still flowers of curtains
and chairs, through the window
sealed like an anxious letter,

so that floors expand, the way
years between the stars expand,
taking on the dimensions
he remembers as a child.
It's as if all things, retreating
from each other, return
to a nameless place, light
as paper boats, as prayers.

Words too have a way of scattering
in the mind, of coming loose,
burning in the night's great sea of ink.
Look, there, where the jaws
of the book open to yawn
or swallow, to take him in.
Look, as he dips his sleepy head
with only the wind to catch it.