Amenities

By Richard Alan Bunch

Her needles move now by instinct.
Memoried threads over memoried tread.
A patchwork between what is
In the cards
And secondhand gossip
Like the olden days
She still beholds.
Yet whenever her needles pause
As though suspended
There's a curious lethean air.

She remembers how it was
Some years ago out watering
The easter lily and the ash
When she partly unraveled.
Her eyes they dimmed
Only to disclose
A face strangely
Gentled. She remains
In yesterday's mold.

Her children have dropped by since.
And both times, no
Just once, they fought
Over the price of selling her
True estate.

Still she holds to the golden days.
A kind of peace with bygone griefs.

Her fingers are now moved
Not by whether
It rains or clouds, but
By instinct and that alone
Along those threads that thin.