Taking Out Grandma

[billy]

The Rest Home staff are mostly Filipinos,
though they look like Vietnam: i saw other feedback, sorry i think it would be better as something else....unless you said 'mostly the Philippines' which sets the context. great opening though
there’s an arm in a sling, a neck in a brace,
her name is a flinch on a foreign face. A1 for the win. so far whose sling or brace it is is left hanging
She hasn’t attacked for a day and a half now it's obvious that granny's a cage fighter
but the unspoken pact is easily snapped.
By inches she dies, by strokes she vanishes; brilliant image, it's as though she's being painted over.
our fingers are crossed for a final push -
not the Long March but the Apocalypse. the whole ending of this stanza is sad yet hopeful

A Brass Band plays in the Winter Gardens
each Sunday of the summer.
We sit underneath the handkerchief tree, i have no idea what this is but i love it. is it that knotted hankie you wear to stop the sun burn?
an ear for approaching thunder
and an eye on the spite filled sky;
she spills tea and bemoans the weather,
partly here, part music-hall era.
When the first fat drops of rain land
the band play Over The Rainbow
without a stumble in their schedule,
as if the world had some agenda.
She sings - sings with such fragility,
that all those who share our shelter
join in to lift and help her.
Handkerchiefs float around our eyes i'd suggest hankies or something else so as to not have two so obvious words in the same stanza.
disturbed by weight of water.

i'm not jealous but i would like to do a few poems as well as this. remember that meter thing you spoke of. this is one of those poems where it doesn't need strict meter. the cadence works line by line.
thanks for an excellent read. with a small edit this is definitely good publishable material.