Inheritance

The laundry is on the line.

Ditch-dirt painted trousers,

threadbare button-ups,

Singer-stitched, Sears Simplicity Pattern A-line skirts protest stiffening

in the approaching October chill.

Today's sundries from Cayhoe's Grocery are put away in the pantry.

Corn, peas, peaches, turned forward, standing like fine little soldiers in succession,

just past Grandma Burnett's pickles and a stuffed, splattered recipe box,

below mason jars of last season's huckleberry preserves, packets of Knox gelatin,

and the stash of dried morel mushrooms gathered in an apron one Sunday.

The shrillness of children's voices pierce the stillness and cause a shudder.

Skipping home from primary school,

high on gossip,

loose with a few hours’ freedom from factor memorization,

ready to give Mama a run for her money before Daddy walks through the door.

The beckoning of an imagined distant dinner bell

from across the neighbor's pasture

acts as a pressure cooker

to prepare dinner.

A perfect pot roast, potatoes, perhaps a little rhubarb pie.

Was that a rattle beneath the farm sink?

She heard it, certainly.

The bottle of Ancient Age to blur a mother's mistakes

nestled behind the box of Borax, the neatly placed dish strainer,

the stack of hand-stitched potholders.

One row of ice.

Frozen about this time yesterday,

graces the edges of the teal Tupperware glass,

gliding down noiselessly

like a secret passed between long gone childhood friends.

~

Even after dementia set in,

as she looked aimlessly into the distance of her middle age

through the dingy window of the old folk’s home

she heard what she thought were the voices of her children - or their children - and wondered if they felt loved

she sat hunched and haunted by the worry of which memories would last and if the home she made had been enough.