Poem for 9/19/22

by Bob Sharkey

The day she got off the train

at Union Station,

she was wearing carnation pink.

Dress, hat, shoes all the same tint.

I was only seven, but I sensed

trouble as soon as she looked

from my grandfather to me.

“You will be ok,” he said.

The day before I headed west,

she asked me to take a chimp

and a pair of parrots out to

her parents east of Tuba City.

She was wearing a crown of dandelions,

said the parents were worn out,

the animals would perk them up.

I wanted to visit the Monuments and

come into the Grand Canyon from

the east and best entrance.  So, yes!

Now they are all gone, 

the last aunt died two years ago.

Even the diamond crowned young Queen

whose face in profile graced so many

of the stamps I collected as a boy

has departed.   

~

Bob Sharkey writes prose and poems.  He is a long time board member of the Hudson Valley Writers Guild.  Bob is the editor of the annual international Stephen A. DiBiase Poetry Contest now in its 9th year.