south

Clothesline

She remembers the clothesline just off the kitchen window.

Lined against the bushes of lilacs all blooming in the spring.

Straight lines of coiled wire touching brown decaying wood post.

Each week she would see the lady of the house hang lovely colors,

different shapes and sizes of shirts and pants and little girl’s dresses.

Blues would mix with the pinks and reds, but the whites were always

separate from the others so not to allow the dye to run on them.

Deep in the summer south the hot wind would bend and sway

against the flag of colors left out to dry until right before afternoon sun.

She then would gather them and fold and lay them in a straw basket

bringing them into the house; the smell would be of the out of doors.

copyrighted: 2016 CMM

I hope I will always wake in tulip sunshine

among the fragrance of green grass

growing near flowing rivers

while breakfast sizzles in

cast iron skillets

with biscuits

on cobalt

blue

plates.

If this

goes away

in my memory

and leaves me for

another day in changed

places, I want to still wake

in tulip sunrise and still smell

the coffee brew to another time but let

not the reciting bobwhites forget to sound; so I will always remember.