Another laughing scream, and I send them all outdoors.
Out, out! All of you – there’s five – and the longest time
putting on shoes half-worn through with hard use.
Then the kitchen is quiet with the quiet of boiling potatoes,
of oven warming its lit belly. The chops of my knife tick
against the cutting board. Muffled shrieks, and I come
to the door. Their smiling faces are turned to each other;
I watch them through the mosquito screen. They don’t see me.
Renee Emerson is the author of the poetry collections Keeping Me Still (Winter Goose Publishing 2014), Threshing Floor (Jacar Press 2016), and Church Ladies (Fernwood Press 2023). She is also the author of the chapbook The Commonplace Misfortunes of Everyday Plants (Belle Point Press), and the middle grade novel Why Silas Miller Must Learn to Ride a Bike (Wintergoose Publishing 2022). She lives in the Midwest with her husband and children. Her website is www.renee-emerson.com.
On the day that hate rode into town /
We visited our neighbor in her new home /
She is over 90 years old
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O Father God, the Lord of all,the one who sent your sonwho mother-like her people calledto come to her for helpand safety from the comingholocaust of Rome or Hunand later still the Teutonand now the terror wreaked bySlav on brother, sister Slav today. . . peoples, nations, folk,who had no optionbut to choose to sufferas…
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