THE BONY FACT OF TIME
“What time is it?” he asks again,
shifting his pain in the wheelchair.
I search for an answer, but sense
that clock time isn’t what he means,
his bony feet in my hands. The white wall
sun-splashed. Thirty-three, he looks ninety.
My hands strong; his white sole. “I don’t know.”
(Morning: I breathe, stretch, enjoy
the grass beneath me. Tai-chi:
a firmness of feet, earth support, birdsong.)
“It’s a very spiritual thing,” he says,
“to massage someone’s feet.” Breathy.
“Scary” he says. “This not knowing…
What’s going to happen, I mean.”
We wonder. The radiant curtain; a breeze.
Then: “What time is it?”, forgetting he asked.
– Christopher J. Ash