Poem Spam

[aquabean]

Birthday Girl: 1950
by Linda McCarriston

for my mother

The day the package came
from Sears, you were ironing
and smoking, in the one
slab of light that elbowed in
between our three-decker
and the next one.
World Series Time, and the radio
bobbing on the square end
of the board told over
what you already knew:

The Sox are the same old
bunch of bums! you said, slamming
the iron into some navy gabardine;
the smells of workclothes—Tide
and oil—rose up together
in steam around you, like the roar
of the crowd at Fenway
and the shouts, downstairs,
of Imalda, getting belted around
her kitchen at noon.

Some people can make anything
out of anything else. If you
still can, remember that day
like this: you douse your cigarette
and squat down close; I open
the box addressed only to me
and find inside the pair of sandals
you call harlequin, with straps
as many colored as a life.

I am happy. You buckle them on me.
Every room is dark but where we are.
Every other room is empty.