Difficult Woman

She is 99 years old.
So old and wrinkled and stretchy, you could fold her into a quarter of her size
And push her right through the hole in her earlobe.
She does not know her birthdate, because if she did she would have remembered.
Yet she knows she is 99.

Cheated out of the luxury
Of a banal life in a tough country, and a tough century.
Struggling against a freedom struggle to keep her man
How wrong did she feel?
He was kind, just loved his land a little too much.
Seemingly anachronistic in the era gone by,
How wronged did she feel?

Deracinated from the western homegrounds,
In a city of immigrants imbued with culture and politics,
Vestige of vulnerability was time-consuming.
She had kids to feed after all.

So she still wakes up at 4 in the morn
To read her epics.
She has documented the going away of offsprings and associates.
She did not, simply because she stayed.
They say she does not yield.
Aye, she's a tough one.
She was not privileged enough
To not be one.