A SCENT OF HONEYSUCKLE
It reminded me of the way my grandmother’s back porch
smelled,
The vines clinging to the wall next to it.
A leather recliner, cracked, sitting in the shade
Next to the sofa shedding its fleece.
Even the flies on the screen couldn’t be inspired to irritate.
The warped floorboards were bare and smooth
Worn with the resting of eighty years of feet.
Eighty years of evenings spent remembering
While looking out on pomegranate trees heavy with fruit.
As talk turned from “Sophie said....” to “The sorghums comin’
up.”
There would be pauses to consider things,
And in the moments of silence
Their hands would work at the though skin of the fruit
To get at the hundreds of small kernels of life.
And like the pleasures of life available to them,
They would taste all there was to be taken,
Then spit what was left into the dirt.