Rosie

Four days a week
she heads eight blocks down the street
to the same coffee shop
where they know what she wants before she speaks,
and it's always decaf.
She says it helps her sleep
because in her dreams
she is free.
It's there,
that that godamn chair
gathers dust
and her iron legs dissolve to rust.
But it won't last.
'Cause when she wakes,
reality shakes, her
heart can't take this ache.
She won't believe her destiny
is preconcieved imagery
full of sympathy
for eternity.
Well...hers at least.
So, every day, before she opens her door
she reaches for that white sunhat.
The one she said that makes her look
like Mary Tyler Moore.
At least that's what Steve used to tell her
back in 1974.
But, that was before that messy divorce.
Where he took half, but wanted more,
then ran away with his little whore.
So now she's left with a one bedroom, half bath
ceiling's cracked, mouse traps, hurts to laugh.
But, she still finds it within her.
She reads Buddhist literature.
"Everything's impermanent", she told me.
And plants Rosemary,
then gives it away to people she meets
for free.
And every day before her day begins
she puts on red lipstick.
Because then she resembles Betty Page
Half her age,
free from her cage.
Bird sings, and I know why
because I've never seen her cry.