My mother was washing dishes;
a turquoise pendant
dangled at her sternum
as she looked out onto the patio,
the bees cross-pollinating
her Mortgage Lifters,
her Big Boys, her Fourth
of Julys. My father came home
on the late bus, walked through
the dandelions with his
brown leather shoes
and fished the newspaper
from the hydrangea.
My sister chalked
a circle on the driveway
and stepped inside.
The next day, my mother
rode the gondola up the mountain
—she wanted to really
see the moon—
and my father discovered
country music, that he had
a voice for those sad, celestial notes.
And my sister played croquet
by her own rules, sent
balls with coloured stripes
plock plocking all over the yard.
- Clea Roberts