Torque

The garden smells of wet mulch

and the heat coming off the brick.

She holds the aluminum can

like a problem she can't quite solve.

I watch the tendons go tight

under skin so thin it’s clear,

a translucent wrap for the bone.

Her knuckles are gravel stones

pushed under wet, white tissue paper,

stiff with the salt of sixty years.

She tugs at the tab, her jaw set,

and I see the smallness of the fight.