“...But didn't your mother die too?
Back before we came?”
Some thoughts, Dad?
That day for you?
How was it?

Tell me how you woke in gray –  
dressed so uniformly in it
Tell me how you turned away
from all those helpless flowers on the ground
Came back empty to her kitchen
Still filled with the smells of her

Let me see her!  Hear her!
Once!
With any words –

besides the ones about the meat juice on her dress
The roast flung back
to splatter rage
upon the gentle curse
I see reflect
in my own image
across the table from him...

I want to know about the picture on your bureau
Do silent eyes still tuck you in?
She has a kind face that seems unending
I understand why things have gone unsaid

Do you know?
I have been wondering
Sneaking in your room
to pull her down from heaven?
To melt the years
of frosted glass between us?
to touch her face?
To look into her grayish eyes
pretending for a moment – she can really see me
To lay my head against her calico embrace?

Celina Arnell Rodier, 1872 – 1941  (Dad's Mom)

Before he returned from the fields
she must get there!
Harnessed Ole' Jerry to the buckboard
by herself
flung wildflowers mixed with iris, roses
tied with string
up on the rough-hewn seat

She was sweating, ill
and pregnant yet again
But some things always mattered more
than dinner at his hour, on the table
Sometimes in her frantic mind
she found the strength to curse him

Wiped her brow with sleeve
No bother for a hat
No time to tuck the loose hair to her bun

Hiked her skirt and hoisted sorrow
beside the wilted posies
Grabbing reins and slapping
Jerry's quarters with them soundly
she rumbled madly
out and up the hill

toward the cemetery
once a week
Her promises--
of always –  in his fear
she kept

So silently I stand here, waiting for him to come
I wait here for my one and only, my one true love

Time flies by and I start to lose hope, I fear that he may not come
I wait some more for him to arrive, but he is not in sight

I see him with someone, who is pretty and subtle
I realize he no longer loves me, he loves someone with fewer flaws

For these flaws I have are dangerous, and no one can love that type of girl
A girl like me who is clumsy and makes mistakes

Will never be loved any time in my life
Here, is where I will wait