I’s  jealous of ‘er,

Knittin ghost blankets with perdu needles

Tellin them children she don’t member she’s got

“They is a baby on the way.”

Taking me to places of our childhood

I’d long forgotten

in the wilds of Georgia

where we found baby skunks and thought they was kittens.

Momma fed ‘em corn bread and we kept them in a basket on the back porch.

Rock of Ages was the only line we knew.

Our underwear was made of cotton sheets

Or daddy’s shirts you could see through

from beatins on a warshboard,

But she remembers

the taste of poverty

as apples and sweet sand-plum jelly

on Christmas morning

while I’m stuck in the present bein an old woman

and she’s moving back

to precious time.