up the slope and look out over the Beaver River.
Louise is back at the house.
She wanted to come
but this is Ma’s place,
Ma’s grave,
Franklin’s too,
and Louise has no business here.
She wants to come everywhere with us.
Well, I won’t let her.
Not everywhere.
Daddy says,
“She could have come.
There’s room enough for everyone, Billie Jo.”
But there’s not.
She can come into Ma’s kitchen.
She can hang around the barn.
She can sit beside Daddy when he drives the truck.
But Ma’s bones are in this hill,
Ma’s and Franklin’s.
And their bones wouldn’t like it,
if Louise came walking up here between us.
October 1935