My father and mother
how I like to remember them
young with hope and wonder
before I was anything
she barely fifteen
and he twenty one
marry
young with hope and wonder
before I was anything
she barely fifteen
and he twenty one
marry
and like their parents
start a family
in Cairo, Iowa
sons to farm the land
daughters to gather the eggs
me,
in my father’s arms
first born
My father and mother
farmers
digging and plowing and planting
seed in the dark earth
season after season
life filled with rotated
soybeans
corn
and wheat
and the occasional
field of potatoes
plowed up
and exposed
along with innocence
My father and mother
how I remember them
a trip to Lake Tahoe
our first and last
ten years of marriage
soon
to be dissolved
and turned over
for a new season
a new family
stronger and sturdier
than the last
but the hope and wonder
has abandoned them
left somewhere back
in that small farming community
of Cairo, Iowa
when a fire stole their home
left with only the
charred remains of a life
to be started over again
but never the same
hope and wonder
disappeared
like all the other traces of their marriage
except for me
Still filled with hope and wonder,
missing the mom gene
