A

ACAJOU

West Indian tree varying from flesh to auburn.
Hard tropical wood of the mahogany family.

APRICOT

One morning, the day room is too much.
Too much glare from the light.
She opens a letter from her mother.

ASTERISM

A first bicycle, her father folding a paper airplane, her
mother's history books, her daughter asking, how long
did it take you to write a hundred pages, sapphire star hiding
inside my heart, asterism, the widening and questioning
look of the blind woman when I say, it's over there; now
it's gone.

ALTIMETER

A box of breath. The thin walls of the box are pushed in
as air presses from the outside. A part of the ear, I believe,
behaves this way. I believe it's the tympanum, or a drum.
It may be useful in flight.

ANTIQUE

A brandy decanter in the day room, four feet tall, amber,
very still, and still very beautiful. It's in the shape of a
woman, a caryatid. Standing is her vocation. Her long
hair, her face, her feet, her long hands. The old couple
never tasted the brandy for all the years she stood quietly
corinthian in a corner of the day room.