THINKING OF MOTHER'S DAY
Some inspiring poems I heard
during April
National Poetry Month
led me to write:
A WOMEN’S TOUCH
I love the poems that women write.
Poems about white sheets
drying on a clothes line in the sun.
I can hear the children running
through those starchy white tunnels
squealing with laughter.
All those Mothers, delicate and moist
from earnest scrubbing and finishing touches.
Hands that soothed fevered brows,
or slapped the beJesus
out of a backtalking teenager.
A woman’s touch is a fine art in itself,
deftly turning a page
in the middle of Polonaise,
or smooth and sultry,
a hand sliding down a satin slip,
sleek and soft,
smelling of lavender
or White Gardenia.
Where are those dust-powdery teachers, now?
What were their names?
Mrs. Angel or Mrs. Cotton,
with glasses hanging on a thin chain
a handkerchief tucked in the bosom
of a dark green gabardine dress.
Where is that soft voice
asking us eight-year-old girls,
“What is grace?”
“The unmerited gift from God,”
we replied in unison.
Me and Mrs. Armstrong,
one of those dust-powery teachers
Gordon Street Baptist Church
Easter Egg Hunt (c. 1941)
