I’ve come to visit you Auntie.
I notice your eyes, rheumy and red.
Globes that should slip from sunken sockets
crying wee, wee, wee, all the way home.
Parched skin peeling at the edges.
Yellow flowered wallpaper of teapots and mice.
I snick and snatch it from the wall in gleeful shreds.
Chalky plaster up under my nails.
Hold still now, while I stuff it down your
scrawny, corded neck Dear.
Knick-knack, paddy-whack.
My hands savagely wrinkle this lacy hanky in my lap,
your ragged face a blushing blue hue,
gnarly knuckles grasping at the crusty comforter
crafted so many years ago,
and couldn’t get up in the morning.
Burning in hateful agony,
I scoop it around your shivering shoulders,
your hunching, crunching back. Step on a crack.
Here, let me pull it closer about you Auntie.
Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.