The clock began to droop like a Dalí this morning.
The hour hand
drifted to the linoleum before breakfast.
By noon, the minutes
had settled on the foot of her hospital bed,
desiccated leaves
leftover from autumn
scattered on the laundered sheets.
He measures time instead
by her smiles,
bites taken from a bagel
just one more, honey
the number of steps down the hallway
two more Percocet
the pace of her breath
when she sleeps.
Last night he dreamt of her vertebrae--
fused and intricate, crustacean
almost. They glowed
through her skin, her profile
a floating x-ray.
Now
he lifts her weighted
body into bed,
as delicately
as if
bones
were nothing more
than porcelain pieces
and butterfly wings.