|
|
|
|
In The Echoes of My Mind
I can still see Mary pushing
her latest child in the old
coach with the broken wheel.
That "clacking " noise it made
let me know she was coming
when she was a block away.
She always had a vague
expression on her face,
as though she was only half
awake, and I always wondered
if she could talk, for I
never heard her make a sound
in all the years she lived
in town.
Her husband (Happy) looked like
the grandfather in the Beverly
Hillbillies, and never smiled, and
it amused me to hear folks call
him by name, for I'm sure his mouth
had always turned upside-down.
They lived in a little shack near
the movie, and on Saturday
afternoons we stood in line
for the matinee, and had to
pass their place and it always
amazed me that so many
people could sleep in one
bed, and how the sheets
were not white,
but gray.
One day I walked by, and
they were gone,
poor Mary died, they said,
and old Hap turned those
kids into the county, and then
he traveled on.
I can still see poor Mary, sorting
through the trash and tucking
some treasure deep into that coach,
I can still hear the "clackety
clack" it made, in the echoes
of my mind.
|
|
|
|
|
©2001 Judith Anne Labriola
|
|
