Emily Bukowski

my grandmother always attended the sunrise
Easter service
and the Rose Bowl
parade.

she also liked to go to the
bench, sit on those benches
facing the sea.

she thought movies were
sinful.

she ate enormous platefuls of
food.

she prayed for me
constantly.

"poor boy: the devil is inside
of you."

she said the devil was
inside her husband
too.

though not divorced
they lived
separately
and had not seen each
other
for 15 years.

she said that hospitals were
nonsense

she never used them
or
the doctors.

at 87
she died one evening
while feeding her
canary.

she liked to
drop the seed
into the cage
while making these
little
bird sounds.

she wasn't very
interesting
but few people
are.

Charles Bukowski in You Get So Alone At Times That It Just Makes Sense, Ecco/Harpercollins, 1986