by Juditha Dowd
This evening it occurs to me I ought to call my mom and dad
because it’s been a while. And for a moment they are not
gone some fifteen and thirty-six years, but still at the house
where I left them, the first of their children to depart.
It’s summer and steamy and all the windows are open wide.
She’s on the porch working the Sunday crossword.
He’s out back picking tomatoes or wielding some tool—
lawnmower, drill, or paint brush. For what they may lack
in talents or skill they substitute perseverance.
Today I took tomatoes from the garden we extended again
in this post-pandemic summer, the leaves already mottled
with a virus that will kill the plant but doesn’t harm us.
Here too it’s hot and humid, like that year my twin brothers
caught polio, from swimming at a public pool some said.
The same August our younger brother almost drowned
in the deep end and our country joined the Korean war,
though my father was too old to fight in that one.
If only my phone could find them tonight, I’d assure them
I’ll get another booster. Or bemoan the endless shootings,
the forest fires, the latest wars… Or instead I might say
It’s 100° and I’m making a tomato sandwich.
Maybe leave it at that. They’d know what I mean.
Juditha Dowd’s fifth book of poetry, Audubon’s Sparrow, is a lyric biography in the voice of Lucy Bakewell Audubon (Rose Metal Press). She was a 2022 finalist for the Adrienne Rich Award and has contributed poems to Beloit Poetry Journal, Cider Press Review, Florida Review, Poet Lore, Poetry Daily, and elsewhere.
because it’s been a while. And for a moment they are not
gone some fifteen and thirty-six years, but still at the house
where I left them, the first of their children to depart.
It’s summer and steamy and all the windows are open wide.
She’s on the porch working the Sunday crossword.
He’s out back picking tomatoes or wielding some tool—
lawnmower, drill, or paint brush. For what they may lack
in talents or skill they substitute perseverance.
Today I took tomatoes from the garden we extended again
in this post-pandemic summer, the leaves already mottled
with a virus that will kill the plant but doesn’t harm us.
Here too it’s hot and humid, like that year my twin brothers
caught polio, from swimming at a public pool some said.
The same August our younger brother almost drowned
in the deep end and our country joined the Korean war,
though my father was too old to fight in that one.
If only my phone could find them tonight, I’d assure them
I’ll get another booster. Or bemoan the endless shootings,
the forest fires, the latest wars… Or instead I might say
It’s 100° and I’m making a tomato sandwich.
Maybe leave it at that. They’d know what I mean.
Juditha Dowd’s fifth book of poetry, Audubon’s Sparrow, is a lyric biography in the voice of Lucy Bakewell Audubon (Rose Metal Press). She was a 2022 finalist for the Adrienne Rich Award and has contributed poems to Beloit Poetry Journal, Cider Press Review, Florida Review, Poet Lore, Poetry Daily, and elsewhere.
