Poetry Wednesday: All the Time

It's Multi-blog poetry Wednesday again tomorrow over at our favorite artists spot, Jacqui's Creative Journey. Uninspired to write something original today, I'm sharing another "Old Woman" poem that I happen to love. Enjoy, and be sure to hop over and visit Jacqui for more.

All the Time
Michael Andrews

It was 93 degrees.
She wore 3 sweaters,
a sweatshirt,
some long pants,
a few dresses,
rolled down nylons,
sneakers,
a feather boa,
and a 47 year old mink.
She bought the mink
for consolation
the day she outlived
her last husband.
One eyelid
was in a flutter
of perpetual motion.
Lipstick
ran all over her face
like a map of Chicago.
She was as crazy
as a 5 oclock commuter.
Went to the Safeway
twice a week
with molding dollars,
social security checks
and food stamps
Stole Tootsie Rolls
and ate them before
she left the market.
Walked to the intersection.
Waited for the light
to turn red,
hunched low,
knees high,
lurched out in front
of oncoming traffic,
waved madly at
the skidding cars,
her wire basket
with coffee, doughnuts
and smoked oysters
bouncing right behind her,
chuckling and muttering
about insane drivers,
one eyeball rotating
in an orgasm of fear.

It was her little joke.

Once a policeman stopped her.
She kicked him in the shin,
scattered his citations
all over the street,
yelled rape
in her reed-pipe voice
and scurried home
muttering about cops.
After that the police left her alone,
but sometimes they
spoiled the fun
by stopping the traffic
at her favorite crosswalk.

Her house buzzed
with ticking clocks.
She didn't trust the electric ones.
Wound all 217 of them every day,
but never set the time.
She considered the random
firing of alarms
a form of music.
She kept the smoked oysters
for the dog in the freezer
with her third husband's appendix,
which the dog greatly desired.
But the old lady kept it
in memory of the surgeon
she married after he performed
the appendectomy in which
her third husband died
of cancer of everything.
Sometimes at night
she beat on the windows
across the airshaft
with a broom handle,
shouted obscenities and yelled
"You keep quiet in there.
You keep quiet."

After a while
they sealed up the windows.
It was getting harder
all the time
to get someone's
attention.