Orphaned Old by Marie Ponsot

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.