(First published in Lip Service Magazine, Spring/Fall 1987)
She was folding clothes when the caged bird in her chest
Rose in a final spasm of wings
And all was changed for her husband standing on the deck
Cleaning the grill from the Sunday barbecue.
Concord grapes lay on the table, a modest
Harvest eagerly gleaned by their sons
But scarcely enough for all the glasses of garnet
Jelly they had prepared to put up.
Her earliest neighbor would remember Maggie folding
Clothes: first the diapers for the five
Babies, later the jeans and now the sheets
And towels of houseguests who used to be children.
Who would bake the pies from the seventeen quarts
Of frozen blueberries? Who would plant
The tulips or cook Thanksgiving dinner? Who
Would teach her seventh grade science class?
These are the wrong questions. We should ask
Who will feel the shower sting
Her face in the morning? Who will watch her dogwood
Slowly drop its white tears?
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