A flickered visit today
Clear, blue eyes
Provide brief recognition
Of a year unknown.
Am I five or 45 today I wonder?
A smile has lifted
She wears a blue pin-flowered blouse
Loose, nothing too sexual
With smoke grey tall slacks
Clean, pressed
A button undone
Opening to a padded white bra
Perched in a shining metal elder prison.
Earrings to match
Always was dressed to the T
Jean Nate scent
Mixed with a hint of urine
Not bad today.
Fingernails peachy
Albeit chipped
Scraping Oprah Winfrey on the cover
Of a 2009 Good Housekeeping magazine.
Once a perfect specimen
Of 1950s delusion
Donna Reed meets Elizabeth Taylor
After many pickled lunches
Of Tom Collins and fondue
Leaving monogrammed handkerchiefs
Behind
For potential affairs.
Creepy skin in a snake texture
Loose, pale, like parchment
A spark flickers when Frank is played
Conversation is a tapestry
Of memories and tears
What is what?
She has no idea.
Einstein had it right
Time for her is relative
Comfort is the main concern
Do you feel pain mom?
Morphine shots are cupped in
A glass vase by the window
For those times
Of contorted confusion
When we both give up.
For now we will drink the tea
Or Kool-Aid
And ride any here and now
Found in the sharpest mind
Of a life winding down.