The Good Stuff
I still remember you
tending our modest garden out back,
sunlight making your hair auburn.
I was blessed by small-town pleasures,
running for the ice cream truck,
bike rides at dusk,
the anomaly of desert rain
filling the air with ozone, and the smell of wet sage.
I’d climb the nearest hill with my dog
to watch sunset bathe the whole valley
in a feral, solar light.
Winter came and we climbed the hill with sleds,
you made us maple syrup snow-cones,
and Mexican hot chocolate.
I read Judy Blume at my brother’s boxing matches,
he slept through my piano recitals.
In the days of Kool-Aid and Tollhouse cookies
your unwavering affection was a constant backdrop.
I didn’t know what it was worth
to see my parents kissing on the couch,
Dancing together in the study after
they thought we’d gone to bed.
The clean desert winds came and washed over us,
a little family,
in a little house.
The world was safe for me then…
I don’t know if I ever said “Thank you”
when you tucked us into bed at night,
because I didn’t know then, Mother,
what the good stuff was.
