After they turned the corner, that huddle of children
carrying bread to eat on the train, my children
with their dark coats still faces resigned feet
that had walked down the porch stairs
moving, moving, a catch of breath seen and felt
walking forward and away, a catch and a pause
but then forward, forward to the corner
in one breath looking smaller, in another out of sight
goodbye! see you in the summer!
take care of your little sister!
I lowered my arm and placed into its crook my smile
and my tears, the full-blown bloom of my heart
damp on a dark cotton dress sleeve.
Back in the house my hands did their tasks
without the summer help of my heart
whose seasons had changed in two beats:
picked up the quilts from the floor, folding
gray and black wool, old skirts and trousers
bits of red, a man’s wool shirt
faded maroon and brown, my wedding quilt
and the lightest a summer dress, flowers blurred in fog
tucking batting where patches frayed and threads broke
smoothing soothing mothering
the prints of my children’s bodies
to squares that I placed under the bed, until spring.
Then I walked to work, warm without my coat,
cut down for Angeline, the smallest and today the warmest
walking to the train in her huddle of brothers
in my cut-down coat, my arms around her arms
my shoulders on her shoulders
my cut-down coat warming her in my absence
my smile and wave the last she saw
my starving eyes the last she felt,
on the back of her small head the combed-in line
that parted her hair between her tiny braids.
Small Angeline.
With her brothers she walked, without them I waited,
back to my hangnail existence, three seasons deadened,
but living for the day they would return.