Hedged In

They are under the hedge, the elderly, the silver whiskered. Threadbare possums, frail chipmunks. The feeble, squeezed into narrow parts of the day. Her apartment is hedged in. Her telephone is black, silent and Bakelite. A groundhog comes out to gaze at the sunset, some myopic sniffing, then shuffles back with that stout rolling gait of his. She forages in her living space. From a window she blinks at the moon, only yesterday it slipped from her purse. Once she bought tickets, visited the young. Once relatives parked new automobiles under her sparkling windows. They are settled, tucked into socks and pockets seeking foods unprepared for the present. Paws hang soft. Pills pend under bedroom lamps. Some of them are under the hedgerow, some unsnarl the threads of bundled quilts, together they gum at a nub-end of twilight. They will stay here knitting hours together until the long forgetting finds them.