Crepe Roses

Junk cars smash
the marigolds. She planted,
stroked the petals, called
the flowers her children.

A motorcycle spits
oil on her kitchen floor.
She mopped with Clorox,
baked dried apple stack cakes.

With bowed back, she poured
sweet tea, eyes blue as the sky.
“Can I get you anything else?”
An autumn breeze wafted

through snow-white curtains
she made on her sewing machine.
The basket’s filled with quilt scraps
cut from dresses I outgrew.

Rag weeds choke the garden,
cornstalks droop to the ground,
tomatoes rot on vines,
the creek reeks with trash.

She made roses from crepe paper,
dipped them into wax, decorated
the graves. A goldfinch strips
petals to the sepal.

**

Heritage

Far from the city,
the red plank house
huddles in the mountains
of western North Carolina.

Poplar trees glitter like gold,
Joe Pye weed dots
the banks of Swaims Road,
cattle graze in celery fields.

I pass the Groves’ farm,
Jack hacks cornstalks for fodder,
pumpkins careen in the patch.
I ford Hyatt Mill Creek,

Myers Chapel Church towers
on the hill. Beneath the maples,
a ring of red covers
Uncle Ralph’s grave.