Last Leaf - Cloud Rat

What does the old woman say as you pass?

Clearing, and sweeping across the floor

The voice repeats

Freckles like watercolor

Dripped from head to toe

Wooden floor, hands and knees

I’ll paint each square just so you don’t forget me

Coyote nipping, police scanner calls

Pumpkin-colored farm light

Furnace monster;

Her breast cancer

Scratching at my back

All my dreams;

This is just memories

Still polluting, still polluting

Indefinite boundary

My heart is a swamp

You pinned down my soul;

Bondage straps across my chest