Sissy.

She trudges through the door
a hulking mountain of sadness
eyes stained the colour of Uluru at sunset
from tears spilled over the setting suns
of loved ones lives.

Beneath a rising moon, she waits
in an inky night of the soul
itchy feet, ready to leave this place
waiting to walk, not pace behind bars
to go back home “sissy,”
near the citrus fruit of her youth.

She tells me in low, aching whispers
that she moves without fear,
even here
because “Mother Teresa blessed
me with a kiss, when I was just
a little dear,”
so these days she strolls the yards
without concern or care.

As all the women gather round,
wide eyed, fallen cherubs
who landed in blue tracksuits
on hard times
to hear Margaret tell the tale
of the light bulb in the hall
that smashed
when the filament was dead
and the way the broken thorns of glass
didn’t even pierce her head.