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