A poem for my mother

Lucile, This Place, and You

She stood at the back door one afternoon.
The bees were loud in the arbor by the garage
Drunk already on the fallen fruit.
The children were playing in the field next to the school yard.
Molly barked and yipped and jumped from boy to girl to girl.

Her life seemed endless. The cycle of laundry and meals and cleaning and shopping—
a loop broken only by the drive on Sunday, ice cream and baseball on the radio.
He loved her in his way. That was what she had.

And now you stand at the back door, hearing the children in the school yard at recess.
Why don’t adults get recess? Why aren’t we able to take it easy?