winterpoem #5

our children remind us of stories we never should have forgotten how could I have left a small child in front of city day school in the bitter double digit wind chill not checking that she got inside how when she found the doors locked she stumbled the several blocks to the hillistad house by the park it wasn’t her neighborhood sheltering often behind trees to keep from freezing how the bishop’s wife fed her hot soup how she spent the day playing with the many hillistad kids and basking in the warmth of carol’s love don’t you remember mom I begin to and from this distance bless carol dead too young from cancer for being there enfolding my little one I oblivious was at work I presume

© Jacqueline Jackson 2008