Old Auntie
spits of conversation
splatter against brown brick
urban squalor
she shambles
slowly past song
into dementia
a bottle curved fondly
into clawed arthritic shape
wasted and spare
as autumn passing
a winter’s sentence
in a bare concrete cell
I heard you screech
slurred defiance back at smug
colonial control
meet conspiracy with non-cooperation
a glaring silence eloquent
with protest
but still they took you
heart country life and mind
all gone now
she shuffles watches
liquid-memory images dissolve
in the bottom of emptiness
©Jennifer A Martiniello
Old Auntie was published in the ASA Journal (1997).
http://www.kemarrearts.com.au/port_poetrysj.htm
THE OLD PROVERBIAL RECOVERY 