Visitation

tick, tock
tick, tock

Her house
neatly packed with crystalline figures
statues of angels and flutes
sterile
and silent

tick, tock
tick, tock

Mom's old gray Toyota, worn with age
"I don't want to go!"
she slipped me the unreadable papers
without saying a word

tick, tock
tick, tock

That woman
as sterile and
delicate and
dead
as her crystal statues, lurking
behind a mask of flowers and tapestries

tick, tock
tick, tock

muffled Music from the flowered room
panic grips my chest - I know
she's coming again, to torment me after she winds
that old wooden clock

things were different
then
when terror was not practicing
for Thursday's lessons