All winter long you peered past shades
eyes fluttering like leather moths,
and landing finally on someone
who might take you to church,
or the IGA, where you tisked over
the price of faith or the chicken's black bones.
As early as April you'd come
bobbing your tulip head,
your lady's hat flopping like a fish,
and holding the purse you unwrapped
last year on Mother's Day-
white for these seasons,
and black for the next, but for now
your skinny stem legs marching
past the scar of dandelions, the chicks, and hens,
in the ritual of mud,
in the yolk of the sun,
hoping for someone
to come. But
you do not come today,
the daisy's like pets at your feet.
The church is closed and yesterday
the man at the IGA said
the fish and bread were gone.
He twisted his hands.
His apron was bloody as a sacrifice,
red as the poppies
that bloom from your fingers.
The grass nods,
no one will take you
to the man who hangs like a god,
his slashed side crimson
as the rows of apples dozing
in fluorescent light.
The oranges hide their bright faces,
remembering the sun,
and the veins of the leaves,
the tree that hung them.
He said there's something
in a woman's touch
curtains tied, let down at night
like a ladies's hair, etched
plates soaking in a stainless
sink, stacked warm, so a dollop
of cream might melt
from his spoon. It was late
when my father came in
from the fields. He sat
on a stool by the cabinet
folding the white
bread I'd sliced for him
a full cup of milk, a polished
sugar spoon-and then
he flipped off the lamp
I'd learned to leave on
his tall boots standing
sentinels at the door.
-- Donna Biffar