Poem: brittle

when I was nine
my grandmother
spent days sliding
smooth leather pumps
on rich ladies' feet,
caressing their calves,
herself in stilettos
turning the heads
of younger men,
returning home
to her dying 
husband, her
bones tired
but pliant

trapped all day
in a shoebox of
a store, by night
in that ripening
casket, avocado
paneling yellowed
with nicotine
and age, her
mind took flight
with the circling
buzzards, she
saw things the
rest of us wouldn't

she is brittle now,
the soft edges 
of her love
ground down 
to fear and 
hapless insult,
her eyes are blanks,
her hands shake to
reach and read the
shape of objects,
her head tilts to
draw the voices
from the room, so
she might know, is
it friend or foe, 
is it fight or
flight this time

afraid of the world,
she lives like a
reluctant princess, 
a handmaid to 
brush her hair,
clip her nails, serve
her toast and coffee

by day she
sees enormous
yellow birds
in flight, and
running men in
crisp white shirts,
things the 
rest of us
won't see

she should rest
instead she 
wanders the
house at night,
looking for 
dishes to wash,
clothes to fold,
dirt to sweep,
children to scold,
doors to lock,
enemies to keep
at bay in the
grip of fear,
she looks for 
the man who in
1956 watched her
through windows,
failed to kill her,
but planted a seed
of nighttime terror
that blooms every
night, simple and
indistinct as darkness

she paces, she circles,
the taste of the last
miscounted beer
in a small cloud
near her mouth,
that cave in which
all she ever was
so slowly 
decomposes