The Old Woman Four Rows Ahead
|In 2015-16
|By Tulsa Review
by Jenna Buschmann
We are the daughters of the Amazon
The sisters of Aphrodite and Athena
Warrior’s blood rushes through our veins
The breath of goddesses in our lungs
Our eyelashes hold constellations
Our bones contain galaxies
We are born of fire and sea
We are derived from ancient magic.
Yet I can see from here
How our skin crumbles to dust
An old woman rocking in her pew
Her lips moving back and forth
Shaky and silent with hollow eyes
She, the ancestor of the earth
Whittled away to scraps and slivers
A ghost wrapped in a milky white
Liver-spotted quivering sheet.
We are women full of stardust
We are females forged from iron
But time turns a blind eye to greatness
The clock’s cold hands touch all
Reducing titans to tinder and
Condensing gods to glue.