A Short Autobiography

i eat and sleep, sometimes,
no celebrity, i paint and write, sometimes,
while watching brown spots slowly
spread across my shriveling skin
my memory being selective
erased most of child years and teens
all humiliation and fear and joy
i remember here and there, a toy
but mostly i watched birds chirping
while climbing thick branches
until upside down i hung, caught by a shoe
seven brown spots sit on my left hand
i remember my last glass of white wine
drunk at dinner with my son and daughter
and Sasha’s smile on her third year of birth
they all left to forge their destinies elsewhere
leaving me to watch the ravens, cawing,
circling overhead, beckoning me
to look up, but i fear what i might see
and plod on, apparently free
to watch pink toes, peeking from shoes
needing mending, beyond hope
like those shoes, i can not be repaired
and listen to the ravens beckoning,
promising magic in the end
but is it real?