Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Used

His great aunt wanted someone to be there
when she went to the bathroom,
even this became an uncertain journey,
she wanted to be a little girl again,
with mother to nurse her.
But there were no mothers there,
only daughters, and one was willing
to sit, and wait, for her to push something through.

My great grandmother said to me,
Don’t worry, you will get used to the boat
rocking and rocking, your legs will adapt.
That was an ugly thing to say, so ugly
I can’t even write it.
She was the one stepping onto a boat,
learning to lull and creek and disappear
and cross an ocean.

His great aunt’s house was white with blond wood
and dolls and collections of glass shoes
and tiffany’s lamps.
Everything so used to being in a certain place,
and wearing and wearing into that place
that nothing could be moved.

There was that clinging, you could feel
the pillows clinging to the seats,
and the plastic flowers set in so tightly,
and that feeling, that long feeling,
that used and no more using feeling.

*A poem from a few years ago.

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