Maud

In the only apartment on the thirteenth floor,
An old lady sits alone by the windowsill,
On a wheelchair scented with Betadine,
Brimful of cold Darjeeling tea within reach,
Her eyes gazing into the setting Sun,
Glimmering with the hope of Armageddon.

In this place called home where she's lived,
For years and years on telephones and letters,
Postcards and diaries and wet handkerchiefs.
A Paddington Bear bedsheet in the guest-room,
Once a gift for the children of her children,
Holds a haggard Bible in hardbound leather.

Who is to blame for the follies of her life?
The Devil himself who toils day and night?
Ignoble ecstasy and lustful pleasure in disguise?
Or is it the mores of the multitude that are afoul,
When a lone woman seeks to be released in vain,
From prisons of past and burdens of pain.

An eerie quiet breathes down the Turkish rug,
Except when cutlery clatters in the kitchen,
Or water drips from the leaking faucet.
With a clock that ticks for no one at home,
And a heart that drudges for none but her,
She closes her eyes to imagine the Rapture.

How the heavens will split right in two,
As the good Lord descends right on Earth,
With angels and minions to right the sins,
Of the family whose hate still lingers,
In the lacerated veins of wrinkled wrists,
Of a woman who dies in silence and tears.