The Mad Gesture

because there is no other choice
he makes the mad gesture

marshalling his armies for another
assault

while she sits, with a dumb mouth
and closed eyes, as another film

reels off in her mind. now a flash
of taxi-yellow, now a blinking eye

of red

atop the stone formation two
books may make a desk, a

flier from the drycleaners (one coupon
torn off) the receptive page

for inkblot chicken-scratch, lifted
from the prescription pad (how
many years did she decipher the
doctor's hand

without becoming any the wiser?)