The Innisfree Poetry Journal www.innisfreepoetry.org by Jehanne Dubrow BASIA Warsaw, 2002 Twelve years ago, I was the little girl who watched her work. She cleaned my parents’ house, cooked meals, took care of me. I learned from her a soft language, each phrase sounding like hush and the swishing shut of my bedroom door. This time when we meet, phrases I used to speak, easily as swallowing mint tea, taste strange. The words are stale on my tongue and stick. We stand beneath a farmer’s tree to steal his pears. Taller, I reach the higher boughs. Small, smaller than I thought, she shakes the trunk. We laugh as sweet, green fruits tumble down. She shook me once like this. When I was five, a butterscotch stuck sideways in my throat. Her arms were strong from lifting pots of soup and kneading dough and maybe I felt light, the breath kept from my lungs. I was her sack after the shops. Upended. Emptied out. We must have both breathed then. Against the floor, an amber candy glistened with my spit. © Copyright 2006-7 by Cook Communication |