Welcome to My life in the shadows
The world looked different when I was a kid. For example, most houses in my neck of the woods were heated with coal and on trash day every home had a smaller steal trash can to put the weeks cinders from the furnace in. Back then the snow didn’t stay white very long as the soot and ash from a cold winter’s day would settle back down and leave a gray crust on the snow. Back then, most homes had a clothes line out back and some in the basement as well where Mothers would hang their clothes on the coldest of winter days.
A FORGOTTEEN WINTER
Daddy gave me
one of them old one-twos today
and then watched as I thawed
wilting in the willow chair
by the fire in Aunt Dora’s wood stove.
Outside chimney soot peppers the snow
where mama hangs yesterday’s clothes
as gray flakes hold tightly
onto frozen clothes lines with vise-grip-fingers.
I’m watching
as Uncle Charlie’s long johns become cadaver like
in the quick freeze of arctic air.
Knowing that soon enough they must be pried free,
while clouds of steam from other clothes escapes the folds
and warms my nose, makes it drip from cold.
“I believe my fingers must belong to a stranger”,
I say as I help mother put out
and gather in her clothes line friends.
Stacking them in mama’s basket
as best we can.
Fitted them through the back screen door
where they are draped over kitchen chairs
and Aunt Dora’s old oak table to thaw
while mama and I catch our breath
watching as the frozen personalities
of mamma’s fabric caricatures wilt
in the old chair by the warmth
of Aunt Dora’s wood stove.
Winter 1959
Page 10
uTAH jAY
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A FORGOTTEN WINTER
A FORGOTTEN WINTER