“Pictures and Dishes”
A 100-year old aunt dies,
She of four, close to five generations.
I look at a wall and cabinet
After the death-call arrives.
Pictures, maybe 20, on the walls,
Water-colors, prints, by-the-numbers,
And then I look at the cabinet,
Dishes, plates, cups, bowls, silver,
And I fear her dying first,
My removing the pictures, or leaving them.
My removing the cabinet’s contents.
Little consideration of her having to do the same.
That to-leave-first, die-early wish,
Never to reach for and drop,
Never to reach in and take ….
“Time”
Doctor’s offices,
Pharmacies,
Hospitals,
And they soak moments,
Take clocks,
Fill voids,
All the occupation of hours, days ….
A culture of waiting,
Going,
Blinking in sun when emerging,
Seeing if all in the party are present ….
Mere time ….
“County Jail”
Set in brushland,
The bricks, wire and bars
Frame the prison,
And the orange-wearing men
Line corridors and blue-uniformed guards
Have rules that change hourly,
And black-suited lawyers walk
Those corridors with key-holding guards ….
Outside, on the north side – precisely
Of the bricks, wire and bars,
And the interior’s slow hours,
A wave of white goats, behind wire, too,
Flow over grass, nibbling, flowing…
