Hi folks,

It's been a while since I've written a poem. I won't give away the
methodology (?) of the thing until later... C&C welcome as always.

~*~

Seventy One

These are some things I remember, she said,
one muggy afternoon on her front porch
beneath clusters of grape wisteria.
Hummingbirds buzzed. Cold lemonade sparkled
in a glass pitcher with berries and ice.
If you really want to know. She rested
her gray head against the white whicker back
of her rocker. Closed her eyes. Sighed. Home
made yellow bell bottoms with bright colored
flowers. Your mother wore them every day

until they wore right out. I remember
the imprint of a leaf in the cellar
floor, like a fossil, two ticking taxi
meters under John's workbench, and the boys
train table and photo lab. And there was
an upright piano with missing keys
someone had left behind. Do you want more?
Well, there were always mountains of laundry
waiting to be sorted, or washed, or dried,
folded, ironed, brought back upstairs or down.

She laughed then. Some things never change. Never
change. When your mother was little she had
a Susie-something-or-other oven.
We got it for her for Christmas one year.
It came complete with real cake mixes and
when they were gone, we couldn't buy her more,
so she used mud. She used to pretend she
was an art teacher or a movie star.
I remember that she sometimes knew things
about people. Things that were secret. She

knew. How's about some more lemonade? Now
your uncle, she chuckled, was all the time
getting in trouble. Or he was busy
getting banged up. We had a swing downstairs
in the cellar and one day we were all
upstairs in the living room. We could hear
the swing going back and forth SQUEAK squeak SQUEAK
SQUEAK THUNK! The whole floor shook and all
we heard then was squeak squea sque, all quiet like
so we quick ran downstairs and there he laid

on his back out cold. He'd swung so high he
conked his head on the beam. It's a wonder
he didn't have a concussion. She shook
her head. I remember catching him and
his friend Raymond smoking cigars in their
tree house. There was so much smoke and coughing
I thought the damn thing was on fire and
took the garden hose to it. They got drenched.
Yeah, he was always in trouble that one.
Him and his friend Ray. Inseparable.

You want to know about my parents now?
I remember that my father could paint.
Like a real artist. He used oils and
watercolors. He painted landscapes. Once
he painted a large mural on the wall
of his bedroom. It was a branch with two
blue jays and I remember as a young
girl being afraid of the giant birds.
No matter where you stood in the room, their
eyes looked right down their beaks at you. As if

they were real. Have another oatmeal bar.
Now my mother had a great knack for crafts.
One thing she did that I remember, oh,
like it was yesterday. She set a cast
iron skillet on the fire with just
enough water to cover the bottom.
When it came to a simmer she added
clear blue marbles. When the marbles got hot
the cracked but stayed whole and when they cooled off
she glued them to a gold chain and made a
necklace. Your mother still has it, she yawned.

~*~

CW, Mary :O)


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