My Nan As A Butoh Ghost

Nan at 95.

White hair.

White face.

Rosacea cheeks.

Perpetually falling asleep.

Unable to finish a counter meal. 

Emptying herself out.

As if practicing for death.

Her head gently tremoring.

As if wearing an imaginary crown.

Made of tortoiseshell and precious stones.

That she is delicately shifting the weight of.

People already speaking of her.

In the third person, while she is still present.

As if erecting Perspex walls around her.

To keep life in or to hide the scent of her disappearing.

Now just the soul.

Like trapped gas.

The helium that holds her upright. 

Slowly leaking out.

Now just the body.

Like the powder white scream.

Of unmet dreams.

Being eaten by time. 

Her sounding out the logic of a sticky sentence.

Like counting out a windowsill of dead flies.

Remembering her house as a shrine to the Muse.

Now just a cave washed clean of symbols.

Her standing at her gate.

In a cape made of light.

Staring at the ruins of a rose garden.

Drawing her shadow with a walking cane.

Pulled by an invisible voice.

Unable to rejoin the world.

Now just the air. 

Inhaled through a tube.

Now just the dimples. 

On a hospital pillow. 

Now just a suitcase.

Of coats and shoes.

Stored in the silence.

Of my parent's shed.

Writer: Matthew Philips

Editor: Lachlan Malden

Image: Ann Ann via Unsplash