by Maggie Edwards
She was old⎼so
old she crusted
over, and the crust
smelt like decay⎼that
senior home reek
of fish bones and too
long sleep, but
worse. It rolled
off her tongue
when she spoke
but mostly she coughed
into the open air
and you tried
not to breathe.
She’s gone now, probably
completed her transformation
into pure crust, or maybe
she’s gone crystalline
found beauty in death, pressed
six feet under earth under
your feet, or maybe
she was forming a chrysalis
and has rebirthed into wings
and antennae, you
think, as a monarch rests
on her stone for a breath
and you know she’s not
that smelly piece of crust
down there, or wherever
she is.
Maggie Edwards is an English teacher in rural South Korea. Her work has appeared in the Antigonish Review, GASHER Journal, and is forthcoming in Red Earth Review, and West Trade Review.