henrietta

i leave the blurry light of the wood-paneled room
with filmy, downcast eyes.
my mother and three aunts hum around you.
they are trying to stroke your eyelids and murmur
significant things in your placid ears, all of them.

Angus, the African grey tilts to the side of his cage,
wrinkled eyes tightly drawn.
his maroon feathers gluey and sparse.
he will be still soon, too.

i peek in as though intruding on a ritual.
you are thrashing, your blood-clot limbs
caught in stuffy quilts.
the curled and yellowing tiles beneath you hold on
by their finger nails.

the generations - all flitting about
without me, because i know,
because you told me it would happen this way.
i see past the reddish ruse. it isn’t you.