Dying

It seemed you were dying back then.
I remember your saying — cheekbones
rising from whiteness, frame three stone
lighter — "I would like to feel the sun
upon my face…to have a few more years.'
Today, sickle-leaf wings in summer air.
At the window, a fall of light patterns
my wrist with bronze wires. My hair,
red at birth, is now grey. Yours
I can recall jet black, though it has long been
white. Seven years you were given
to close your circle of life. Within
a fading room, you unseal the resolution
of your lips: "The wheel must turn';
gaze at sunlight through half-drawn curtains.