Companion

My little dog
keeps me company
while I brush my teeth.
Nobody else I know
will do that.

Mathilda Lundeen

The wintergreen she rubbed into her knee
mingled
with roses.

I still see her
at age eighty, picking up her skirts
and wading through the creek
to search out
shy ferns hidden in the bluffs.

Companion

My little dog
keeps me company
while I brush my teeth.
Nobody else I know
will do that.

Mathilda Lundeen

The wintergreen she rubbed into her knee
mingled
with roses.

I still see her
at age eighty, picking up her skirts
and wading through the creek
to search out
shy ferns hidden in the bluffs.

Or gathering the eggs
scratching chicken dirt with her fingernail,
"Bosh, a little manure can't hurt you."

She argued with her children
stalked upstairs, blue eyes
ablaze,
insisted on molasses in the rye.

Her mother died
when she was eight
and Gram saw her
one night on the stairs.

In her rocking chair, stitching
quilt blocks,
"That was Judith's party dress
and that Aunt Clara's apron,"
she wove
long stories
about Cynthia's cow, goblins, and British generals‚?

Snuggled close in bed
we whispered late at night
about romance, boyfriends.
"I don't trust that one.
Eyes too close together."

She was right.