Ma at Home

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.