The Stare

With a basin of warm water and a towel
I am shaving my father
late on a summer afternoon
as he sits in a chair in striped pajamas.

He screws up his face this way and that
to make room for the razor,
as someone passes with a tray,
as someone else sobs in a corner.

It is impossible to remember
such closeness,
impossible to know too
whether the object of his vivid staring is

the wavering treetops,
his pale reflection in the window,
or maybe just a splinter of light,
a pinpoint caught within the glass itself.

Billy Collins, Nine Horses (Random House, 2002)