shredding the barn, lining up
tiny red blue green toy soldiers for sale.
The grasses have dried to flame ,
the stairs are dust and customers roam
all the rooms picking up, putting down
books and cups, silks and soft
eider pillows. Even the mountain
beyond the wide back porch
is up for sale next to the undressed dolls
and bottles of lemon polish.
I walk the hallways calling It’s me —
Me who was here first! I was the first child!
Why are you selling up?
The brown clapboards still smell
of creosote. Out front, thick maples
swell to green above the jonquil patch.
I turn, dazed — my hands cupped out
as though to catch everything falling away.
Jody (Pamela) Stewart lives on a farm in Hawley. Her most recent book is The Ghost Farm (Pleasure Boat Studio, 2010). She finds breakfast at Elmer’s motivating when writing with friends.
This piece [Pink Azalea] means to describe confusions of the 60’s-70’s when there was no ‘meToo’, no common language and contemporary feminism was rough at the edges, just gathering itself. It’s not easy to be honest about sex or death at any age.