The Old Woman Who Never Was

As she arises from her lumpy bed

she weighs each heart upon scales of chance,

She smiles as you pour water into her cup,

and masks her judgment in a courteous glance.

She takes her tea in the living room,

looking out the window, truth and treason blend,

As she watches the morning sun melt the frost,

and every assurance outlives its end.

As she opens a book she penned years ago,

her curtains hide secrets as they softly swing,

as the dust webs drape, she flips the lamp switch,

illuminating all the ruin fleeting things bring.

You join her, with your cup of coffee,

as she toasts to fates she never means to keep,

as you turn on the morning news

she laughs at promises that fail the leap.

As the morning turns to noon, after lunch

she tends a garden where illusions bloom,

from her wheelchair, she barely reaches

each petal scented with a hint of doom.

She knows this will be the last of fall flowers,

Yet in the frost, a single ember gleams—

You help her cut a bouquet for the table

as memories leak into her drifting dreams.

With her cane, she stands for a moment,

Her footsteps falter, with old grievances she weeps,

You lift the chair over the door stoop

into the corridor where her failure creeps,

back into the house of memories that gather

like shadows when truth draws near,

you help her to the toilet room,

and every forgotten assurance betrays its fear.

As she lies down for an afternoon nap,

She navigates a house of fractured space,

You bring her a cold cloth for her forehead,

each memory haunting its appointed place.

You read one of her books while listening for the bell,

Some say destiny stirs when the heart misbehaves,

She lies still, eyes open, staring at the ceiling,

knowing life turns tyrant when the dark it craves.

You’re only hired help, so you fail to care that

lineage trembles with unspoken cost,

as you admire the words she wrote long ago,

each a compass pointing toward what was lost.

You pay no mind if she sleeps or not,

Still, fate awakens her where stories blend,

You help her into her chair and to the living room

where broken moments hold what no mortal can mend.

You watch her as she sits by the window

as she sings her verses of a bygone tune,

You leave her to fix the dinner

leaving her to recall what she surrendered too soon.

She doesn’t tell you what’s on her mind

For every revel leaves its tender scar,

You don’t care enough to ask her, as her eyes

dim like a failing lantern beneath the first evening’s star.

She sits quietly as you watch the evening news.

She tends the remnants of memories charade,

Yet you will never know the truth she knows,

the masks, the mirth, the promises unmade.

You help her bathe and help her into her nightdress,

Yet in her memory, a fragile truth appears—

as she begins to drift into yesteryear’s dreams,

renewal blooms in the debris of years.

Your relief worker comes to sit up through the night.

Who knows the threads that bind tangled schemes,

In shifts, you are only burdened for three days a week,

while her hopes half‑spent, the fractures of her dreams,

are as empty as the faces of those who attend,

as dawn reveals what midnight dared conceal—

She passed quietly in the night, unnoticed,

for her heart’s small bargains no foreign soul could feel.