Erosion

It’s not a rocking chair she sits in now,
staring through a sparkling clear window
into the past, remembering
sleepovers and Sunday
prayers, watching the wind whisper
secrets of sunny delight-filled days
of marriage and children.

Shadows grow long as he lays bound
to iron machinery,
turned like a rotisserie chicken
to avoid bed sores,
but he doesn’t last long.
Death’s right steals him away

then she lives for her children,
spoilt, passionate, unable to forget
nor forgive. A gnawing ache eats her mind away,
maggots on a rotting corpse. As winter draws near
her once solid frame whittles to a skeletal hue
and reliance on wheels becomes necessary.
Muscles weaken, the mind forgets. Tea,
a ritual of old, is taken, the cup not held
by her own hand.

She stares, but sees only a reflection
of her younger, vibrant self and wonders
who the stranger could be.