Louise and I take walks after dinner
every time she comes.
By the time we get back
the kitchen looks pretty good,
Daddy only leaves a few things he doesn’t
understand,
like big pans,
and wooden spoons,
and leftovers,
and that makes me a little irritated
but mostly it makes me love him.
And Louise, knowing exactly what’s left to be done,
helps me finish up.
She was my father’s teacher at the night school class.
She never married.
She went to college for two years
and studied and worked,
and didn’t notice how lonely she was
until she met Daddy and fell into the
big hurt of his eyes.
She knows how to keep a home,
she knows how to cook,
she knows how to make things
last through winters
and drought.
She knows how to smooth things between two
redheaded people.
And she knows how to come into a home
and not step on the toes of a ghost.
I still feel grateful she didn’t make cranberry sauce
last month, at the first Thanksgiving we
spent together.
Louise made sweet potatoes and green beans,
and turkey, and two pies, pumpkin
and chocolate.
I was so full
my lids
sighed shut and Daddy walked with Louise instead of
me
out to Ma and Franklin’s grave,
where he let Ma know his intentions.
And Ma’s bones didn’t object.
Neither did mine.
And when they came back to the house,
Daddy still cleaned the kitchen.
December 1935