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Old Lady Poetry

I came again to the small table

where she keeps her scraps—

the brittle corners of yesterday’s paper,

the thin envelope she never sent,

the coin she saved for a bus fare

she no longer needs.

She looked at me the way

a cupboard looks at a thief:

quiet, resigned, already knowing

what will be taken.

I told myself I would only borrow

a little—

just enough language

to get through the night.

But the drawer slid open

and there they were:

her last two mites,

wrapped in a handkerchief

soft from years of folding.

I should have stepped back.

I should have let her keep

whatever small wealth

she had left.

Instead, I pocketed them—

those tiny glints of her living—

and walked out with the weight

of what I’d done

pressing against my ribs.

Now every line I write

feels like it was bought

with her breath.

Every page carries the faint

tremor of her loss.

And when people say

the poem has a certain ache,

I know why:

it’s the sound of an old woman

searching her empty drawer

for what I took.

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