DRIED UP PEOPLE

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my aunt was childless

and sweetly fed her man

it’s how to keep him happy

she made me giggle

after he passed she became a stone shrine

she ate everything cold, straight from the fridge

she plucked her eyebrows on her death bed

when people would try to pry the tweezers from her bony hands

i would close my eyes

and open them in time to watch them prepare for departure

they wanted her to weep she said

shine their shoes with it

dried up people

she ran a plant

yelled in Glaswegian Pakistani,

words she made up because she did she’d say

try and stop me she said

she comes to me often and I hug her tight