When old women stop taking
care of children and pets and
grown boys and houses they may
notice the age of their hands and
wonder why they look like the hands
of grandmothers when their minds
are still young and harbor dreams.
When old women have no one
to feed except themselves,
the mirror may become a study
of how so many memories could fit
into such a compact body, and shrinking.
When old women rest they may find
beauty in the strange rhythms
of a lifetime, though they may have
composed a very different symphony
in a perfect world.
orphan poems 