Unlearning. Lili Grace Ward

 

At a cabin at the end of the train line I unlearnt how to write.

 I remembered the places I sat when I first learnt how to write.

29/5/21

Maybe my shallow brain walks while the rest drives, so it's still in Mollongghip.

I'll leave the kettle on for her while we walk today.

In the meantime, I can crunch gravel and tread lightly.

I'm feeling hopeful with a clean heart.

 I will sit for long enough and scrub myself over with warm soapy water, remembering forgotten dirty corners.

I'll fill up, bleeding saponaceous suds...

                              Lunar Eclipse from Mollongghip, 26/5/21

Octogenerian on the train..

I watched her, hunched over her walker.

I followed swollen fingers tracing over the words,

on slick, glossy paper.

Arthritic

gliding wrinkles.

She read about the new nursing home, hers,

then just as quickly as she read, she folded each bit of the pamphlet into tiny squares and packed it away,

grappling with the zip.

This time;

                 with more austerity, she tore at the casing of a booklet that read; 

                                                  "At Home Innovations."

She spent longer with this one.

Antiseptic images of cabinetry and faucets,

night lights and pillow case raffles.

Her head found the edge of her walker

and a minute of rest found her.

The words told her where she might die,

then told her the best deal on a high thread count bed set.

The catalogue shook with her,

It didn't understand the attention it was receiving either.

Custardy battles.

I would hold hands but I wouldn't touch an electric fence.

I'd dance around a crocheted pole, but never knit its' frays into a flower.

I'd never spin in circles so as to wind myself so tightly in string and stand straight for hours on end. Straight and wound and dizzy from spinning

                             Hepburn Springs, :))))

from Lila in Hepburn Springs.