Bare Ruined Choirs

I watch him hang his stick on the rail
and climb the six stairs, one by one.

then, moving like a slow motion bumblebee
he makes his way down the lighted hall,

bumping his right side (never his left)
till he reaches the bedroom  door, the moment

of greatest danger, with the world
swirling around his knees as he turns.

He makes it. The brown robe bumps
the doorjamb (on the right) and he's gone.

She finally draws a breath. In this one thing
she's not allowed to help. Later she says

it's hard, because it's harvest time;
it's so hard to let the apples lie.