Her bones sound like the shaky clink of a glass teacup

On a glass plate

And she’s trying to keep it all steady

Her eyes are blue and huge inside her glasses which

I hope make me look as larger than life as she pretends I am

As I pretend to be

Even though it’s against protocol

I hold her hand as we walk through the aisles

And it feels like that one time paper became human

And asked you to pretend it was

Just long enough to know what love felt like

I wanted to tell her I love her

“You’re so sweet,” she said

“So handsome”

“Such a nice smile” she said

I wanted to push the red beaming sun of my face to her cheek

so she could feel me blush

First we looked for hair spray

And then we looked for lipstick

Her favorite chocolate

Which she confided tasted like ****

But she had to stick to sugar free now

And then we looked for her arthritis medicine

Adult diapers

A bedside ******

Please take the years I am not using

I’d die young to keep you here a little longer

To fight back the dust in your bones

And the paper of your skin

I want you to wake up every morning

So when I ask you how your day has been

You can say more than

“Well

I woke up again”

******* lady

If you knew what I would do to stop this

Her smile never fades

No shame hidden in the wrinkles of her face

I let her out the back so she can get to the street corner faster

“Such a nice young boy” She says

And I just want to tell her

I love her