This is an end I can live with
I want a big long room
with French doors at the end of it
a swirl of buds and leaves outside it
a Manx cat on a couch
a lean blue vase
I want a kitchen with its bowls
the creamy yellows and blues the white
pot steaming with tea making
the French door windows misty
muting the leafy view
sitting in my mother's maple rocker
snug in my father's cable stitched
cardigan my white mug of tea
on the table beside
this is an end I can live with
like Mrs Muir in
The Ghost and Mrs Muir
she died content in a favorite chair
after drinking a glass of warm milk
old by the color of her hair but still a beauty
the same might be said of me
she died in a vintage chair while
drinking tea sifting through
a box of stories and poems
that she saved for the end
(marked circa 1979)
stories typed and retyped over
and over pages darkened to camel
brown and smelling musty
all the same story the same
girl character with a different
girl's name there was Eta
artistic and poor
and Rita whose property was vast
who kept going off to this place
and that leaving Eta to sulk
wishing for a miracle that
would unravel it all
there were other girls names like Olive or Pearl Iris or Lil'
sometimes the name was
just SHE
only an occasional date
gave a clue as to the
month and the year
of this version or that
Is this an end I can live with?
rereading old stories with
a font size too small with the
intention of keeping a few
judging from the vantage of age
which ones to save and
which ones to throw in the trash
downsizing my legacy?
Laborious task I'll not spend
another night with my
head in the past
sleepy and spent I throw
all the stories back in the box
along with my memories of this or that him or her
saying tomorrow I'll fill my tall kitchen bin
with the lot of them
if this is it I can live with this end
to hell with posterity
my epitaph
she died old according to the color
of her hair but she
always had beautiful bones
#culture
