Another lifetime
I sat on our back porch
framed in dying sunlight
swiping at a 'skeeto.

Your hand, tired, grubby
grasps mine, willing, gentle.
Your forehead red and tender
from the long day in the field.

The faded and sweaty cloth
the color of the slumbering sky,
unties from your head
and you rest it in my hand.

Hours pass into the dead
of night where I sit still
on that porch, my grasp
protecting all I have left of you.