Elegy

Have you ever seen a withered walnut?
When first met, it’s quite deceptive.

Straight backed and sturdy,
the walnut boasts invincible
like the chest of drawers
Grandfather built for me
when I was a child.

But once the nutshell splits
youth sputters into gasping age,
less a ghost than a corpse
more a corpse than a body
brown and slightly curling

like Grandfather’s hands
that once built a chest of drawers.