Women
friends show me they know
in the ways they know how.
Men friends have their own daughters
to worry about and their Canadian
and Indian lovers.
Sweetheart, I knew you had started out
earlier than we’d expected
when I couldn’t sleep and came down
at 2 to put beans to soak. Already gone.
Last of the yelloweyes from Enfield ground.
By dawn, finally at rest, the phone....
crossing the Erie Canal...well on your way
far away.
A woodchuck freezes rounding the corner
by the mac downed this winter.
Watches me watching when I go out to face
your direction then keeps right on
by the still dormant honeysuckle, lilacs,
woodpile, down behind Ed’s shed.
Two apples with the onions this time,
last week’s new paring knife making it easier.
Ouch... a gouge.... Fresh maple syrup
with the molasses. Fine-cut ginger root
with the mustard. Last chunk of ham and
leftover ribs the kids sent by.
All day...all day....simmering...simmering...
Corn bread from my own ground meal.
Your father’s last cabbage, slawed.
No matter how I suck it up, there’s blood
in these beans.
Chicago in the morning, South Dakota
by evening news. We’d cry you say
at the farms still with their original homes
even more at Wounded Knee.
Echoes, The Northern Maine Journal
came today, dear. I’ll subscribe for you
beginning with this issue with the mother-
daughter story, and the one of the upright
like our old Chickering crossing the plains
by truck about now.
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