Wild Peaches and the River

 She tucked me into bed,

wrapped me in

an age-worn quilt

and I slept like the baby I nearly was.

When I woke,

I pulled the quilt around me

and tiptoed across the old wood floors

covered with braided rugs.

Rubbing sleep from my eyes,

I entered the kitchen

and watched her sitting at the farm table,

with a cup of steaming coffee, slicing a wild peach.

Her hands were still strong then;

and even now I never see a peach,

smell one, taste one,

without thinking of her.

She laughed, her mellow way, eyes crinkling,

when I said how much I liked the sweetness

but not the fuzzy skin which poked

like a prickly moustache against my mouth.

Overheard her saying, later

that she ‘got tickled’

when I’d said the pigs rooting in the pen

looked like they had ribbons in their tails.

When I’d trailed her

to the rabbit cages

and saw a mama rabbit

eat her own baby

she didn’t shield me

from the horror of it,

but let me ask the hard questions

and answered them, best she knew.

‘Fascinating’ is what I’d called it,

when asked about it back home.

And she was, too,

though I never said it.

Except at the cemetery overlooking the river

when I wished her back

to see me enjoy the sweetness in my life,

to bring lightness when it poked;

and because the questions

have only gotten harder.

But mostly, to hear her ‘tickled’ laughter

one more time.

Copyright 2012 Jennifer Wagner

For Grandma.  Rest in peace, we so often rested in yours.

Submissions:  dVerse OpenLinkNight and Theme Thursday, Cemeteries