home(age)

[kushal poddar]

Home

“Boys. Oh, boys.” She tells.
The bouts of cough in between.
The few of her pictures
Resting on the table with
A short leg. Sepia.
A cup of tea long past its
Prime time, now just stale
Lies there in its lonely cup.
The windows of the home
Produce an afternoon, dull.
Aunt doesn’t try to
Conceal her chuckle over
Memories of springs.
Touches that should have happen
And touches that have.
Her rolls of stories unveil.
Bored, I beg pardon
For a world less humorous
Than those sepia
Stories, waits outside this home.
Bidding farewell
I turned to look at the old age home…
An evening like a ripe melon is engulfing it…

[Winifred]

What I like: use of sepia, the way the windows "produce an afternoon, dull," nice comment on how her world focusses inward now. I like the ambiguity of "Bored, I beg pardon/for a world less humorous..." which captures apparent conflicted moods.

There are grammar issues here: "'Boys, oh, boys,' she says," might be better English, but she certainly seems to be a storyteller...
"Bouts of coughing," or "bouts of coughs"
A few of her pictures (meaning she has more elsewhere), or her few pictures(meaning she only has a few)
Touches that should have happened

I turn to look...evening like a ripe melon is engulfing it
or
I turned to look.....melon was engulfing it (eithr both in present or both in past tense)

Not sure how I feel about ending a poem about such a lively holder of memories with "it." Might just be me.

Overall, I like it, I can relate to a lot of this with older family members.