So many childhood summers
(and last summer too)
spent at my family's beach cottage,
surrounded by boy cousins
Grandma always asked them
to carry suitcases,
pull weeds from the sand beside the house,
fix torn screen doors.
She asked me to do the dishes.
The too-small kitchen,
with its one swinging light bulb,
smelled of cinnamon and stove gas.
My forearms itched with dish soap,
as I tried to tear down the tower
of plates glazed with Macaroni & Cheese,
ketchup from hot dogs -
anything that could feed 19.
My comfort was the set of windows
over the wobbly basin sink.
Large, screenless panes
with faded yellow curtains
and sunflowers
that my aunt had painted
directly onto the glass.
Outside, the beach grass rippled
until my cousins uprooted it,
sweating under the heavy summer sun.
|