Mrs Perkins, Oedipus And Me Poem by Joe Hughes

We speak today.
It is not the last time.
Age attacks her,
I still have the better of it.
Oedipus surveys,
Sphynxlike,
Guarding the hallway
Of the mummy within.
The cornered Olivetti grasps firmly
Her latest cutting lines.
The topic has changed.
Death has become loneliness -
Excellent bedfellows
Given birth by her novelist husband's passing.
She loans me her latest volume,
It soothes my introspection.
Freudian influences
Feed my shadows
In this winter companion,
Barometer of the soul.

(Joe Hughes visitor to the late Elizabeth Bartlett)