\'Old Lady Poetry\'
I came again to the small table
where she keeps her scraps—
the brittle corners of yesterday\'s paper,
the thin envelope she never sent,
the coin she saved for a bus fare
she no longer needs.
She looked at me the way
a cupboard looks at a thief:
quiet, resigned, already knowing
what will be taken.
I told myself I would only borrow
a little—
just enough language
to get through the night.
And the drawer slid open
and there they were:
her last two mites,
wrapped in a handkerchief
soft from years of folding.
I should have stepped back.
I should have let her keep
whatever small wealth
she had left.
Instead, I pocketed them—
those tiny glints of her living—
and walked out with the weight
of what I\'d done
pressing against my ribs.
Now every line I write
feels like it was bought
with her breath.
Every page carries the faint
tremour of her loss.
And when people say
the poem has a certain ache,
I know why:
it\'s the sound of an old woman
searching her empty drawer
for what I took.
.