It ended up I didn’t
marry Mary Jo.

Her giggling, flirting flaunts,
her teasing temptations,
broke the lure of her lovely breasts
and the thrawl of her silky Cherokee hair
draped across her shoulders,
down her back,
frilling that wonderful ass!

But,

I might have married her mother,
a mere fifteen years her senior,
more an older sister,
only thirteen years, mine,
who,
ever tender,
ever sure,
tended me
when my breathing succumbed
to the corn-top-tassel-pollen
yellowing
their farm-house window-sills,
back-porch floor
and my weakened asthmatic lungs
my inhaler couldn’t help.

She led me down creaking stairs
to the cool, dark root cellar,
cleared off the canning table,
covered it with thick horse-hair-blankets.
She lay me down,
spoon-fed me sweet honey
from her bee hives,
stacked behind the barn,
the comb floating in it
like a baby in the womb.
She caressed my face
with warm, moist, cotton towels,
cradled my head in her lap,
patient,
as my breathing evened,
coughing ceased.

She sighed as,
leaving me to her cures,
she climbed the stairs
to her second-floor bedroom,
empty now,
but for the passion she remembered,
years ago,
before hard-scrabble-farm-work
took its toll
and broke her husbands will
and she buried
Mary’s father
on the hill.