Around a rose the elderly ladies spin,
Like witches now, and now like powdered lovers,
Like ancient mothers, bewhiskered and very wise:
Grey-haired Miss Gertrude, with terrifying eyes
To match her down-east voice, I see deliver
The witches’ lines at table and make me cringe.
She scared me out of sense another time:
I saw her lean from her chair and never move,
Wide-eyed and drooling . . . . She was hospitalized:
I brought her violets, remembering how she prized
Her flowering beds an(d buslhes. She asked of love
Only a blanket of roses at burial time.
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