She Poem by D A Phinney

She could never get a grip on things
Nor find out who she was
Three husbands and divorces
One child confiscated by alcohol
Endless streams of things she had owned
Things she did
People she knew
She did not know
Everything impossible to hold
To grasp
She was an hourglass
Life poured through
People, possessions, loves, lies
Hopes, despairs
So much sand, she could not hold
Poured through
She swung, she clung, from one thing
To the next
Anything
But alone

Until she fell, she fell
All slipped away and fell
At last
Nothing left
Nowhere to go, a vacant life

On a bare, lost, lonely beach
She wandered cold
With wide uncertain steps
And knelt into the wet sand
There was something there
She pried it out and cleared it off
Was it a genie?
It was a mirror
She held it
'Ah! '-with one bright cry she stood-
'There I am! '