The Sunday Poem: The Old Lady Is

This poem was originally written about my upstairs neighbor when I was very little kid in Greenfield, MA. She did have bottles everywhere in her small upstairs apartment, though in my memory the quantity of them is probably exaggerated.

The Old Lady Is

Up top of the stairs where the blue paint
Flinches away and the nails are loose —
Stairs climbing the side of the house, exposed
Like flies that buzz through waiting

Windows. Open the door to see bottles set
On every surface, hazy with dust and
Time, colored green and black and tan
And white like a crystal growth cut

Rounded. Past the corner rocking she sits,
Wrinkled by the air that never moves
Save by her hand. She speaks softly, losing
Her breath. She has no wisdom but her cat

Reflecting her in yellow mirror eyes, wishfully,
Caught hunting in glass like amber like brandy.