The Forties

In small towns in the forties
cats did not indulge mice;
they entertained themselves,

and Bill Sanders drove his
dad’s green Buick out dirt
roads, dusting the peach trees.

There were the usual dry
vines spit from anxious mouths
while the wild hay tasseled.

At stores, while supper fried,
white sacks flowered and hands
slapped their knees by dusk light.

Porcelain chinked as heat
blew the curtains, and mud
sucked the water from snow.

Outside, inside, these were
the small presents that kept
the lean and hungry hard

for the nothing past daylight
that would soften and ripen
and explode on the young.