Occasionally, neighbors become good friends,
and so it’s been with Steve and Jody Fuller, Robbin and I.
I am going to read a short poem that I wrote for them
when my mother was dying in the hospital back in 2010.
LAST NIGHT’S LEFTOVERS
We pray for heart attacks, Mack trucks and lightening
as our way out, trading tales of die-hard mothers
like rattlesnake stories, each triggering another –
pouring wine with whiskey rants to laugh
at the sad truth we can’t improve, can’t make easier,
can’t change, but in ourselves. Out of the rain,
my great bay horse, a bag of bones at thirty,
paws the gate in the barn for more grain – an indignant
impatience I trained for years, my mother’s hands
in mine again. It’s rained five days straight,
blew the barn down, blew a tire in a rockslide,
got a ticket parked too long at the hospital,
and we look up into the gray wanting to escape
town and traffic, find home and recuperate
with neighbors and last night’s leftovers.
– for Steve & Jody
Steve left his mark on the hearts of us all.
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