Maybe she knows I get sleepy
                                listening to her talk
about the temperature in the pool
drier balls
parking spaces 
what a new electric toothbrush                   
                               would cost divided over time.     

Even the political rants get tiresome.
Maybe for her too.   She has shifted her approach.     
               What did you do today?                      
                            What’s happening tomorrow?  

My chance to wake up
the conversation, I am thinking,
but when I try to speak, she interrupts.
              When?  How long?  How many?   
This is what she wants to know, needs to catalogue. 
Her handle on life, if you will.  

                                                                       —  thanks to Shelda Hale for the notion of catalogued days