In the Winter Pasture

                                   ... in the winter pasture / fresh powder records every movement

        ... fox / coyote / deer

                          ... and this fan of feathers /  turkey angels in the snow





Photograph by Scott Hill

We Had the Weekends

  
                  ... we had the weekends ... pinochle and pot 'til four in the morning

                                  ... plates piled high with deep fried smelt from lake superior ... your easy laugh 

       ... now you're gone ... and I can't lean across the table

                                                 ... kiss your sweet chocolate mouth / tell you that I love you 


                                                                                                                 


Photograph by William Gedney

The Picture

                              ... you take our picture while we're sitting on the steps of our first house

                ... my black corduroy bell bottoms / his horn rimmed glasses

                                                 ... our little boy between us ....... I'll have two more husbands after him

         ... your oldest son / not yet born ... will die in a motorcycle accident

                                         ... it's all there on those front steps / we just can't see it yet






Photograph by William Gedney

Beside the Highway

         ... beside the highway / a field of sunflowers where you took my picture that day 

                   ... the picnic in the cemetery down a narrow dirt road  / quietly crying on the way home 

  ... years spent prying my hands loose when I couldn't let go


                                                                                              



My reading of this poem on public radio:
https://beta.prx.org/stories/166291