Waiting In Line

frosted lens one secret eye,

it’s time almost gone,

other vibrant blue watery,

she waited to be served

packaged meals enough for

a few days,

tremors with age

cellular collapse,

life’s abrupt stoop to spine,

coat drawn snug,

cold reaches more easily

through mottled paper,

her turn,

trolley a support to feet

more unsteady than an infant,

red leather handbag

leather fashion for forty years

cracked and glazed,

pleased to talk to the assistant

juddering conversation,

sprawled out topics of conversation

no linear trail,

topics of weather,

her husband passed twenty years,

lack of pension,

always broke,

children dispersed seed unconnected

and when she was younger

flew planes in the Pacific

a job few knew of,

no government medal,

yet she offered her life

as she did now to survival,

gnarled arthritic hands

struggled with notes and coins

tomorrow a fragile

premise