Anne Cope Wallace - Poetry Readings 2007

The Clock Dreams on my Birthday

Above the stove the clock calls

eleven fifty. I add a.m.

although the clock doesn't care

if it's morning or evening,

midnight or noon.

In the back bedroom

Mother sleeps, not caring either

when morning becomes noon,

afternoon, night,

her body under the flowered sheets

the frame of an ancient child

slipped to bone and skin.

But in the kitchen now Eva stands

mixing flour and lard

with her two smart hands.

The blue and yellow kitchen

dreams Eva alive

as she is in the watercolor

painted by my sister.

Next I know Eva

will step out of the painting,

knead the biscuit dough,

roll onto a floured board,

shape precisely with a rounded tin,

my father untangles his long legs,

rises from his dented Chevy,

settles into the mahogany armchair

reserved for him,

her auburn hair pulled

to a woven chignon, Mother

sets the dining room table

with Grandmother's cold sterling,

rings the brass bell for lunch.

The hands of the clock

read August 7th, 1950.

Ann Cope Wallace