The Innisfree Poetry Journal

www.innisfreepoetry.org

by Joan Mazza

JULY FORECAST

Cool summer morning without plans, no company

to clean for. Squirrels, front paws at their breasts,

and two titmice wait for breakfast on the deck.

A whole day stretches out, a meadow waiting

for me to lie down to read and write. I fill

the feeders with seed, replenish sugar water

for the hummingbirds, freshen birdbaths,

sprinkle basil and parsley. Easy summer,

no woolens or makeup. No bra. I wear soft

and sun-faded long shirts to let in the breeze.

Before July unfolds its warming blanket

on the day, I pick cucumbers, Swiss chard,

beans, last lettuce, first Roma tomatoes,

wash and sort for soup and salad, pull weeds

and water eggplant. In the simple life of summer,

my garden welcomes and gives, like the woods

in Sound Beach where my sister and I picked

buckets of raspberries and shrieked at dragons

landing on hair and arms. For days, my mother

boiled the jam and sealed the surface of jars

with paraffin, poured from a coffee can

on the open fire. No one helped her.

By afternoon, my minestrone soup simmers,

twelve containers to fill, label and date.

The day skates off on cloud wisps, sealed

with the wax of chores my mother taught.

The simple life is complicated, no time to read

or write until snow falls.

NEEDLECRAFTS

Used bookstore closing, I buy ten books

on fabric arts, fingers tingling to grasp

thread and yarn, needles and crochet hooks.

I yearn for the textures of fabrics—

silky, nubbed, soft or crinkly, sounds as they pass

over one another, tricks to make them drape

or lay flat. In thirty years, I've sewn nothing

more than hems on jeans, but the details

of smocking, gathered threads, and cut-out

work call to me. I drool in the aisles

of textile stores, love animal prints,

rickrack and ribbon, pinking sheers and pins.

In my twenties, I sewed all my clothes: A-line

dresses, polyester knit pantsuits, bell bottoms

and sheaths, spent hours embroidering blouses.

I stitched until the last minute, scraps

and patterns still on the floor as we rushed

out the door for Christmas dinner.

While Anthony drove, I hemmed the sleeves

of a wool jacket that matched my skirt.

I keep those books like scrapbooks.