A Memory
Sweet light coffee
after church services.
When I was old enough
to drink it.
There was real sugar
and real cream in it.
Me in my finery
never losing sight of my mom,
my escort in the House of God.
The adults talking, buzzing,
like bees in a hive.
There was always something to talk about
always someone new to meet
during the Greet Your Neighbors part of the program.
I shook hands with so many strangers.
Do they remember a blonde 10-year-old girl
with a bucktooth smile
and an unyielding shyness.
I'm mixing things up.
The shyness came later,
when adolescence silenced me.
For a moment, in the hall off the kitchen
after church, I was safe.
Safe with my mom, safe in the hands of God,
safe from the strife at home, safe from future
rebellions.
Did He know then, that I would lose Him
Only to find Him again?
In sweet light coffee.
Poetry by Anne Westlund
Read 590 times
Written on 2009-10-01 at 02:14
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