It's Still Life

The Old Woman With No Cat (#2)

1. About The Old Woman and Shrinking

the old woman with no cat grew up
      drinking milk
milk in a glass in pudding on cereal
ice cream cake chocolate with biscuits milk for growing
and she grew long as a sentence and tall
      as a year and a day
because little girls who drink their milk grow
big and strong and now that she’s big
she’s been told she’s shrinking
or so says the nurse with the measuring stick
who asks the old woman to crack a walnut in her hand
the old woman knows that trick
and scoffs at shrinking says
she’s swallowed enough milk to fill a cow enough to fill her
long legs two-times over in both of them
      plus some body else’s too
but the stick don’t lie says the nurse
and the old woman knows she’s
shrinking down into little and into tiny and
maybe nothing
as if nothing could be smaller than the old woman’s man on
a cold morning in January or June if you’re down
under
and the nurse with the measuring stick tells the old woman
that time is a knife cutting us all down to size
as if be ready to mix your ashes into a knobbly weft
of stars or have a plouter
in a stream down close and eye to nose with crawfish.

but she knows she’s milked herself into nothingness
      or so thinks the old woman with no cat.

Experimental poetry in the style of The Dead Man poems by Marvin Bell. Image from Wikioo: The Cat-eyed House by Ashtabula Harbor (1893-1967) Public Domain. Inspired by Napowrimo Day 12: Small. ©Misky 2022 Image Elderly Woman Mending Old Clothes, Moret, by Camille Pissarro, 1902, Shared with #amwriting #glopowrimo #napowrimo on Twitter