A silver hair somehow

escaped the tidying.

Running it through,

my fingers remembered:

a child’s fingers passing through a
silver field,

and the old man’s patience
then;

the silver crest, hat-grooved,
glistening

above long strides a child must skip
or run to;

veins through drawn, transparent
skin;

open-eyed breathless absorption near
the end;

a frail final form
memorized

on an imprint in a cotton
mattress.