Efi Hatzimanolis #77 Care

for my Aunt

You pinched out the blistering heart 
of our last summer together, turned autumn’s head
craggy before its time, went then into a winter 
of staring into the stiffened scenes of your future 
tattooed on death’s back, and front.
How you managed to squeeze your way back to us, 
when we’d visit your extruded body in its hospital bed
during that winter of one too many returns from the dead -
and once you woke to find yourself surrounded by my azaleas
crawling with the friendliest, most concerned
insects from my garden,
far too many for intensive care to permit -
they threw the pests out together with you. They
got one thing right, at least. You lasted
not a second longer than the twelve months they said. 
It would’ve been ten months, 
had they not kept dragging you 
back from the dead
to fulfil their inescapable prognosis.