Now the evenings are quiet with my mother gone
as though the night is listening
to the way we are counting the days. We know
even the feel of out grandmother's brush
being pulled gently through our hair
will fast become a memory. Those Saturday evenings
at her kitchen table, the smell
of Dixie Peach hair grease,
the sizzle of the straightening comb,
the hiss of the iron
against damp, newly washed ribbons. all of this
may happen again, but in another place.
We sit on out grandparents' porch,
shivering already against the coming winter,
and talk softly about Greenville summer,
how when we come back,
we'll do all the stuff we always did,
hear the same stories,
laugh at the same jokes, catch fireflies in the same
mason jars, promise each other
future summers that are as good as the past.
But we know we are lying
coming home will be different now.
This place called Greenville
this neighborhood called Nicholtown
will change some
and so will each of us.