The Poem I'll take to Evelyn

See today's The Widow's Chronicle


Apricot Burial

Dear Mama,
I'm down here canning apricots.
It's a thankless task--fingers get thick,
spongy, back and legs aching stiff--
and I'm not sure anyone will eat the fruit.
Still, the tree hung heavy, I couldn't stop picking,

jars I have plenty, might as well fill them--
waste not, want not--and it's somehow
good for the soul.
I said I'd give one full day to the job,
one day in the kitchen, dawn
to dark, dream it again all night.

You would have let them go a day or two,
thrown in pineapple chunks, cooked them down
for jam, fruit and sugar boiling on the stove all day,
apricot steam making its way to every corner of the house,
drifting out the back screen door. We went to school
trailing it behind us.

I'm not boiling jam today, Mama. I scour, cut, pit,
fill each quart jar with twenty-four apricot halves--
turned inside center down, as the book shows--
pour hot syrup, slide in a knife blade
to release air bubbles, tighten lids,
some old song stuck in my head the whole time.

Six loads times thirty minutes in the hot water bath,
then down the basement steps to line them up,
bright as jewels, on shelves made from our old wooden bed.
(Aren't you proud of me?) I should have
got the kids to help, I guess,
for the sake of their souls.

After a few years,
I'll likely dump the fruit
with some regret.

I remain your daughter,
Carol