sitting on the grass sloping up from the door
at the back of our new rented house     my mother excited
distributing bread and salt     saying it's a very old custom
smiling     but we couldn't really eat it
myself seven or eight years old     my mother trying a tiny amount
the grass I remember was hard to sit on     sloping up
but we all wanted to be excited
my mother thinking of the old custom
my father at work
my brother and my sisters and myself    ignorant    especially the baby
in the pram    we wanted to be in the spirit of it    just looking at
my mother's happiness
perhaps it was the grass we were meant to be happy about
I kept on feeling it     buffalo grass spiky
cut to a mat     cut criss-crossing     fingering it
I was looking at its greenness
but the salt was puzzling
it spoiled the fresh poppy-seed bread
it was happiness my mother needed to be
reminded of     not sorrow
I knew this at least

© Phyllis Perlstone