unreasonable facsimile

after my husband's head injury
I hurried him out of the hospital
he had lost his mind there

I wanted to go home
while I still had mine

we were followed home by his shadow

through those years afterward
while I mowed our lawn
shoveled our driveway
raised our kids
I kept hoping
for some magic power
to come to me
to help him find himself again

it never happened
he remains a stranger in perpetual boyhood
refusing adulthood
while I
with needle and thread
tried to sew up the shreds
of a once seamless marriage

what we once thought was kevlar
turned out to be gossamer