Tweed

Irregular tweed blue bay

Wrapped tonight in your evening peach shawl,

Dusk accents your lovely

Stony necklace with a shiny city bridge

clasp

Saturday Morning Sister Poem

Meet me at the intersection

                Of Me and You

How could we find each other

                Anywhere else?

And it’s important that we both

                Show up

For how could it otherwise be

                Than at the edge of You and Me

Full Moon Grasses

Full moon grasses

lit silver by sister orb’s

metal breath of night

only waves from

dark sky breezes

let luster peacock

off each thin blade

and so the wind

and the grass

and the sun and the moon,

and so they play

all night

as we sleep

Cottonwood Trees

By the cottonwood trees next to the railroad tracks

                Down a dirt road sits a tiny white house

Davenport on the porch with the built in smell of Grandpa’s

                Copenhagen

Blue and white striped overalls

Scruff beard and a white shock of thick hair

Harmonica

Jokes and laughter and fishing poles with worms

                Waiting

For a trek through the snake grass and cows to

                The river

Whatever fish came back to the white house

                Were a tribute to Grandpa’s patience with

                Tangled lines, snags, and baiting hook after hook

Stop at the red iron hand pump for water to clean our catches

                For Grandma to bread and fry

Served with sliced cucumbers from the garden

                Behind the outhouse with a crescent moon cutout

                                For light

Those cucumbers with vinegar, sugar, salt, and thin slices of

                Onion

Served on china, meals sometimes cooked on the

                Woodstove

Slices of vanilla ice cream in a cantaloupe bowl

Pinochle and pinions at the kitchen table at night

Sleeping in the double bed with two sisters

Trains rattling us to slumber

Waking to coffee scents with clinking teaspoons and

low voices in the kitchen

Pictures of dogs smoking cigars and playing

                Poker

The clock on the wall with the witch or

                The kids, indicating stormy or sunny playtime outside

Cousins

                Left-handed Ruth on my right handed side

                At Thanksgiving dinners

Stealing Dutch’s cigarettes

Hearing of Rip chasing the stick and it getting stuck in his throat

Wood pile smelling of railroad, that hot-sun creosote

Poncho the Chihuahua, Grandma’s dog

The cellar door outside

                Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz

Peppermint lozenges, pink, for us in a candy dish

                On the corner of the buffet that now rests

                In my living room, carrying the essence of

                Sweet memories

Harmonica playing

You Are My Sunshine

                Still makes me smile; causes a lump in my throat

Happy memories

Sixteen Year-Old summer days vacuuming and doing their laundry and

                Soaking in having them all to myself

Beautiful sepia Oval pictures of youth

                Young

Ed and Anna

In love 60 years