Page 35 of Wayfarers

closed but you’re wondering

if you’re awake or asleep

and the answer is that if you’re

able to wonder, it means

you’re awake.

The air is velvet with lavender and warm

soup and I hear the soft drone

of voices drifting from a speaker

and the rhythmic clack of Sylvie’s knitting

needles and it reminds me

of when I was very young

and lived in a house, how the branches

of the tree outside my window would tap

the glass in the right wind,

only reviving my desire to live

in a house again,

and it all feels more perfect than I have

any right to feel under my present

circumstances and so I lie

as still and silent as I can, like I’m sitting

on a park bench, watching a squirrel

cautiously approach me, the fate of the universe

hinging on whether I startle it.

Sylvie

When he wakes up, I reheat him a bowl.

“Can you hold it okay?” I ask him, looking at his cast. “Is that your dominant arm?”

“Yeah, unfortunately.”

We stare at the soup for a minute.

“This is about to be really embarrassing for me,” he says, “isn’t it.”

“I mean, what are our options here?”