to lose

even a sense of what 

we once lost as the red stain fades 

on the linen cloth 

and we forget

the dinner party where the wine spilt

in someone’s extravagant gesture and who

did it, now dead, and the day the 

tablecloth was bought at a whim

to celebrate being happy over what 

we puzzle to remember as we fold the now

thin patched weave through which the light

shines almost undisturbed by the soft 

shadows and we smile at this 

gathering finger and thumb touching

and then reaching to each other picking up

the folds coming closer and closer