My Aunt is Dying

  Old lady, where will I put you? Trees and hammocks, relatives, sounds of clanking plates and dried flowers that hang upside down in a pantry that smells of Ivory soap and dried fruits. Embroidery and pressed leaves with unfinished crossword puzzles on round oak tables in rooms that echo with sounds of your gospel songs and shadows of prayer circles on a tree lined street where you've lived for 60 years. I cry for you tonight with jumbled thoughts of life we shared in pieces here and there that haunt my heart, with shadows on my hands that have grown similar to yours. You hide in music that sings me from the hospital to my home. Old lady, where will I put you? In button boxes, quilts and church ladies who cook for funerals while trading recipes and fears of who they thought should and shouldn't be cared for by God. Old lady, where will I put you?