Sickroom
I try to carry the gravestone
from the darkness of my mother's sickroom—
scratches of light around drawn shades—
outside, the gold and red of autumn.
She is like a queen in exile
scraping with her nails on silk walls
her message of anger, her weak
insatiable demands and regrets.
I want her to grow rosy old
like a maple leaf, ripening,
yielding only to that ice edged wind that must come
and cut her down—like me, like everyone.
Robert Winner, "Sickroom" from The Sanity of Earth and Grass, published by Tilbury House. Copyright © 1994 by Robert Winner. Reprinted by permission of Sylvia Winner.
Source:
The Sanity of Earth and Grass
(Tilbury House, Publishers, 1994)