myrtle | Recent Entries

Shoulders back
Chest out
Chin down

This is how
to stand tall.

Even voice
Level head
Firm grip

I understand
I'm stable, strong.

Sharp suit
Clean shoes
White teeth

The hardest part
is meeting your eyes.

Sometimes it's hard
to be sympathetic
Even when the person is deserving
Sometimes it
(the sympathy)
just isn't there.

Sometimes it's hard
Week in
Week out
to be kind.
A flicker
quick stab of cruelty
breaking through
(quickly hidden)
shocking.

You don't always get to choose
who looks up to you.
You look down one day
and there are people sheltering
under your wings
with their mouths open
(needing)

So you never fly
far from the nest.

Eventually
do you
forget how?

I went to see an old lady
alone in a big house.
Husband died two months ago, she
Can't even use the telephone.
Everything had always been done for her,
you see.
She was hostile. "I don't need you.
I don't need anyone. Except him."
And then she cried.

"I was beautiful once,"
she said - and she still is.
Transparently, as if
already a ghost.

"What would we talk about anyway?"
she said. And I thought
we could talk about loss
or gardening
or old films
but she was right
I may know of grief
but I don't know what it is
to be helpless,
frail, and old.

"You have red hair,"
she said. "I had red hair.
"And I didn't have to dye it,
either."

And i made my excuses and left
Well, you can't force people
If they say they want to be
alone
in a big house.