SECOND CHOICE
After forty-two years in this same house
my folks are pulling up stakes and moving on.
When the time comes, Mother says, she doesn’t want
us kids to have to bother dividing up things.
So she asks us now, “What would you like to keep?”
I think of the shiny green Christmas ball we hang
on the tree with glitter-sprayed reindeer gracefully galloping
forever around it, drawing the glistening sleigh,
the sugar bowl with chains of blue and coral
flowers twining up the sides, or maybe
the green metal cake pan dented by the baseball.
But what I wouldn’t give to take home these in a box—
warm concord grapes stolen from neighbors’ vines
Grandma, green eyes gleaming, slapping her knee
at a good one, splashing barefoot in gutters
of summer rain, bicycling down the alley
full speed into the backyard and letting go, eating
peanut butter jelly ketchup pickle mustard sandwiches
to see how they taste, licking the beaters and bowl
of Grandma’s chocolate cake, or being half asleep
after a late drive home, hearing the warm crunch
of tires on the gravel drive.
But I hear myself say, “I guess I’d like Grandma’s pin.”
A wreath of white gold filigree the size
of a quarter with a tiny green stone set
at two o’clock sun time. Always floating
somewhere in the whirlings of my mind
that pin is there holding together the neckline
of her floral housedress as she waters the flowers,
holding closed the collar of her blue floral housedress
as she makes her tart cherry pie, pinning shut
the neck of her yellow print dress as she dozes
in her rocker, it sits on the collar of her good blue dress
she wears when she goes out.
That’ll have to do.
Comments