the fossil record

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Amen

When the woman
of Swedish descent
comes from her house
bearing annuals, when she rights
garden pots upended
by vandals during
a night in March,
when she wears the trifle
of a triangle scarf
over her head,
when she says that snow
will bury the cars come winter,
it is only her anger
that makes her difficult,
only the bright colors
of her potted impatiens
in their dented tins
that cause her heavy figure
to linger in the street
longer than she should, here
at the corner of Third and Wright,
where she stands in her housecoat
telling strangers
in a voice too soft by half,
modulated by the hour
of mystery moods, saying--
as if she might be too good
believe in--telling perfect strangers
how she rises at six a.m.
to do her devotions, and opens
her lace curtains at seven...

Judith Skillman