metonymy4u

The only woman left to defend nobility these days
wakes each morning to the sound of
her water heater, straining against an inadequate
power grid to bring in her dose of daily relief.
She smells old coffee. A piece of bread
is still downstairs from last night’s dinner.
She walks by the river most of the time, quietly reciting
what she can of Pushkin’s verse in Russian. Who
was like a father to her.

What she remembers.