After the exertions transferring Mom
             from her wheelchair to the car,
                           and folding up the wheelchair
and stowing it in back,
             I drive her to the dentist.
                           The first time she’s been in a car
since her stroke,
             the first paralyzed person
                           I’ve ever driven.
She notes the deserted topology
             of the golf course, brown and humped
                           like Dad’s Korea slides
behind the bare trees.
             The lower branches, I say,
                           hang on longer to their leaves.

No.
             She can sound like no when she means yes.

What was it you said before? I ask.
             A lot of people, she carefully repeats—
             digging her words from mud—
think that Fall is a season of death,
             but Fall is when you see
             the structure that's always there,
the living skeleton.