Hibiscus Lingers
I was born somewhere in the southern summers
spent with Mary Lee and Joe. Blossomed in the pungent
pink house with the hibiscus tree out front.
I grew with clusters of cousins like the fluffy bales of cotton
tethered along the rural roads where civil rights did not reach. There,
contentment was a good meal, a good sermon and children with good hair.
Grandpa promised us a pony, bought our groceries with food stamps,
gave us crisp dollars bills we turned into sweets
and let us—all six—comb the river of his soft white hair.
He worked the haunting highways hauling sugar cane and dreams
from Florida to Memphis and us on the other end. Someday –
the city promised – the highway path would cross our road and cut
the pink house down. He would park his rig for good
and Mary Lee could close her House of Perms and that
would be the end.
In the years of waiting I ripened, grew a bosom, southern wisdom
and their only great-grandchild. I remember Grandpa's pony
knowing I hate horses, think of walnut shells splintered bitter
on fragile, anxious teeth and how I love preserves, close my eyes to taste
the long ago of beef stew with too much corn.
Three days before Grandma died she danced,
right there in the kitchen, a soft and soulful
boogie woogie in slow motion and bare feet.
We think she heard the angels calling and shook
loose her earthly shackles, anxious, anxious
for her wings-to-be.
The highway finally came and so did Grandpa's time
and all he said was take me back to my pink house,
the brown recliner and picture window. There he sat
dapper down in a new straw hat and leather loafers,
head thrown back, with less white hair, worried, worried,
he confessed, about not living too much longer and how the highway
stopped next door.
In the too long days since death claimed spring,
the pink house faded, weighted with an over-white-washed
wooden porch smothered in trailing vines and grandkid ghosts.
But the pink hibiscus lingers trapped
with '67 Cadillacs running on black oil still
and me adrift from here to then, while the singsong of
my summer birth echoes, echoes in a faraway
where children bloom no more.
(c) 2005 Stefanie Worth
You can find this poem in "Conversational Silences," available now.
spent with Mary Lee and Joe. Blossomed in the pungent
pink house with the hibiscus tree out front.
I grew with clusters of cousins like the fluffy bales of cotton
tethered along the rural roads where civil rights did not reach. There,
contentment was a good meal, a good sermon and children with good hair.
Grandpa promised us a pony, bought our groceries with food stamps,
gave us crisp dollars bills we turned into sweets
and let us—all six—comb the river of his soft white hair.
He worked the haunting highways hauling sugar cane and dreams
from Florida to Memphis and us on the other end. Someday –
the city promised – the highway path would cross our road and cut
the pink house down. He would park his rig for good
and Mary Lee could close her House of Perms and that
would be the end.
In the years of waiting I ripened, grew a bosom, southern wisdom
and their only great-grandchild. I remember Grandpa's pony
knowing I hate horses, think of walnut shells splintered bitter
on fragile, anxious teeth and how I love preserves, close my eyes to taste
the long ago of beef stew with too much corn.
Three days before Grandma died she danced,
right there in the kitchen, a soft and soulful
boogie woogie in slow motion and bare feet.
We think she heard the angels calling and shook
loose her earthly shackles, anxious, anxious
for her wings-to-be.
The highway finally came and so did Grandpa's time
and all he said was take me back to my pink house,
the brown recliner and picture window. There he sat
dapper down in a new straw hat and leather loafers,
head thrown back, with less white hair, worried, worried,
he confessed, about not living too much longer and how the highway
stopped next door.
In the too long days since death claimed spring,
the pink house faded, weighted with an over-white-washed
wooden porch smothered in trailing vines and grandkid ghosts.
But the pink hibiscus lingers trapped
with '67 Cadillacs running on black oil still
and me adrift from here to then, while the singsong of
my summer birth echoes, echoes in a faraway
where children bloom no more.
(c) 2005 Stefanie Worth
You can find this poem in "Conversational Silences," available now.
| (c) 2007 Stefanie Worth |
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