Her Spirit Watching Television Poem by MARINA GIPPS

With coral lipstick, no blush, blue eyeshadow
ever so lightly feathered, she looked up into the air,
holding her rosary beads with stalagmite fingers
for so many days. She prayed all the time-we told her so,
Said, 'Mami, eres loca! God only steals the good things.
'It's a lie', she sang, 'if you believe you live forever! '
She told my grandfather to keep her t.v. shows on,
that she'd be watching, right next to him,
'Dos Mujeres y Un Camino' after she'd leave.
He got mad-'Caramba! Where the hell are you
going when you can't even walk? ! '

Holding a picture of her mother,
she died looking like the ecstasy of St. Theresa,
watching Spanish soap operas, shaking her head
at all the duped characters. We were all up at school,
studying laughable economics.
Sad hysteria flying home
in cold steel birds.