I Come Home Wanting to Touch

Linda Leedy Schneider

After Stephen Dunn

my Mother´s hands,
red from washing dishes;
the lone daffodil in her rock garden,
yellow sentinel of hope;
the mulberry tree--weed--
allowed to thrive till it blossomed
and bore berries.

Finally enough for one pie,
Just one pie was enough.

I come home wanting to touch again
my father´s curly hair.
"The reason I first loved him," she said.

Mother of Diamonds and Doom,
maker of pies,
I remember tears
falling
into your dishwater.

I come home wanting to sleep
again in the middle
-- safe--
between the curly-haired man
and his crying wife.