Orphaned Old
I feel less lucky since my parents died.
Father first, then mother, have left me
out in a downpour
roofless in cold wind
no umbrella no hood no hat no warm
native place, nothing
between me and eyeless sky.
In the gritty prevailing wind
I think of times I’ve carelessly lost things:
that white-gold ring when I was eight,
a classmate named Mercedes Williams,
my passport in Gibraltar,
my maiden name.
MARIE PONSOT