Erin CoughlinHollowell

A uniform hieroglyphic
Time isn’t thinking of her sitting
beside this man she doesn’t know
even though she has slept to the cadence
of his breath for more than seventy years.
Every Sunday her children call
down a long hallway like the braying
of beasts that sounds only slightly
familiar. When she looks in the mirror,
Time has scrawled his mark
over the face she composed. All
those stories piled up as a shield
against people who have shifted, villains
become benign, and then shadows.
Only the small room is left, curtains
drawn, gracious darkness sifting into
every corner, and the world
a uniform hieroglyphic beyond the door.