It must have been the first night
You ever worked on my birthday
I watched you leave, peering through
The blinds of the kitchen window
And I cried

Teaching Joann and I to embroider
After our baths on a Saturday night
Linda watched, too little to hold a needle
Our hair still wet sitting by the kerosene
Stove in the kitchen making neat stitches
On our potholders of dancing tea cups and saucers

Making hot cocoa on the kitchen stove using real
Hershey's cocoa and milk while we skated on the pond
In the moonlight and rode our toboggan behind
Perry's snowmobile coming inside dripping snow and water
everywhere our mittens lined up on the drying rack
Over the heat vent

Mom
Crumpled and broken
Weeping
After hearing from the state troopers that
Perry had been killed by a hit and run driver

Just down the road from me
Waiting to hear on a snowy day that I
Was heading down to clean off her car
And shovel the snow from the steps and
and away from her barn door and mailbox

Leaving me a teardrop stained note
to tell me that her
Beautiful white kitty named Susie had been
Killed in the road and would I please come down
And help her bury her

Mom
Gone forever
But never forgotten