Summer, 1946


Little dust cyclones rose and drifted above the dirt road
and when we passed open fields heat like liquid lake
spread out across Arkansas Bottomland hiding crickets
in dry grass and rabbits and land turtles and snakes
not visible to my naked eyes but alive in my imagination
with verifiable birds flitting and butterflies drifting drifting
my sister and I walked through that last summer together
all the way from the highway at a place called Bonnerdale
to Grandma’s and Grandpa’s house at least five miles in
maybe six both of us wearing hats and carrying suitcases
I don’t think we guessed that the trip would be the last one
we’d ever take together but that’s the way with transitions
you’re smack in the middle of significant ones maybe even
somewhere near the end where the curve begins suddenly
changing everything like a cool breeze across the porch

I’ll never know who that woman was who called us in to sit
with her on red chairs in the shade of a big sycamore tree
to drink iced lemonade and nibble on brown sugar cookies
while memories were being born that day in early August
and neither of us had any idea whatsoever it was happening