My mother finished her life in side-boxes
in shabby playhouses; she was an actress
and then she was old, and then she watched.
She retained Old World grace, cut fresh flowers
each morning for Sebastian, an octogenarian who
brought ice-cold four-percent milk in bottles.
She'd laugh at this theater--lighting wrong
music wrong, set design some novice's concept

of angst, the discomfort of a crowd
smelling each other's cured flowers, the organ's
exhaust snuffing candles and souring breath.
Everyone else has ruined the tempo--she'd direct,

wave off-white marble-veined hands thumbs-up,
airbrushed blue mouth hailing the freaky, cheap-tuxedoed
impresario licking sweat from his scarred cupid's bow
and patting the coffin lid like a sideboard
he's left a martini, his gloves or a deck of cards on.

She'd silence him, love penned red, by god that'd
        do it; she'd be his halting place.