It's Still Life

The Old Woman’s Unsupervised Sunday

Morning Rebellion

the sun, unchaperoned,
paints the kitchen gold with anarchy,
but still, the old woman sleeps past dawn—
a heresy the cat would have punished,
had it not been next door
knocking over someone else’s teacups.

Afternoon Culinary Experiment

the old woman throws something soupy in a pot:

“Recipe for Whatever’s Left.”
3 carrots with ample wiggle
a handful of something green, possibly thyme—
or maybe a potato.

the ghost-robin rewrites the recipe:
“add more salt. And therapy.
and a few base notes of survival.”

Evening Doctrine

the old woman eats straight from the pot, and declares:
“freedom is just absence of a cat,
plus freedom of poor life choices.”