Impoverished

In your thin scruffiness,
black and white against
sand and stone, I think
of your well-groomed, fattened
relatives guarding luxury
in North America, as you
guard for the hand in the south,
that feeds you, no matter
how sparse, the dry bone.

- Sandra Mooney-Ellerbeck

Old Woman

old woman
on your face lies a gift of fields
stories unfold in the pleated furrows and long tales spill
across the white fence of your smile
phrases slip easy through narrow gaps
where pickets have fallen away
and I lean into the clear space of your calm contentment

I roam free in the gift of your eyes
ponder dimensions of the dusk you now inhabit
while the ripened sun spins out of your path

I am drawn by the gifts you carry in your hands
parrafin tapers antiqued and bent
and the bronzed shelf of your arm
warm against my back

Primed for your last hour
you are comfortable
in the history of your bones

- Barbara Mitchell