When she buries her dead it is
always accidental.
They gave her enough time to become
very good at it.
Her meals and emotions are
largely coincidental.
She would see them off to school,
whoever was young at the time,
drink alone in her room, paint her nails.
Her title, as most titles tend to be, is an
unrequested inheritance.
The family elder, and bubble gum blower,
She watches the trains that always leave too soon.
And the trees she plants in the yard are
preposterous -- an inside joke.
She mocks their endurance, spits and sways,
laughing, daring them to outlive her.