She doesn’t seem to remember
that she was making tea
or that she’s still in her slippers
or that there was ever any pain at all.
He turns off the stove, and brings the tea,
it’s sunny on the porch, and
she is surrounded
by faces who know her name
and laud her with stories
that confuse, crack sharply
across her mind, lake, mid-freeze.
She looks at them, gaze watery,
brave, blankly innocent, then
stares into her tea
as if deciding what to do with it.