The Fifties

We spent those stifling endless summer afternoons

on hot front porches, cutting paper dolls from Sears

catalogs, making up our own ideal families

complete with large appliances

and an all-occasion wardrobe with fold-down

paper tabs.

Sometimes we left crayons on the cement

landing, just to watch them melt.

We followed the shade around the house.

Time was a jarful of pennies, too hot

to spend, stretching long and sticky,

a brick of Bonomo’s Turkish Taffy.

Tomorrow’d be more of the same,

ending with softball or kickball,

then hide and seek in the mosquitoey dark.

Fireflies, like connect-the-dots or find-the-hidden-

words, rose and glowed, winked on and off,

their cool fires coded signals

of longing and love

that we would one day

learn to speak.

Barbara Crooker, Radiance (Word Press, 2005)