The Innisfree Poetry Journal

www.innisfreepoetry.org

by Nancy Tupper Ling

AUNTIE BABE'S PARLOR

Her one cushioned chair, scarlet and itchy, leaves
blotches on my legs and arms. Feathers stick out,
peck at my flesh.  Around me: a crow-on-branch
hooked rug, cranberry glass, a state bell collection.
The Dakotas and Alaska are missing. Behind me,
a bookshelf holds her thesis on tartans. A glass
decanter rests on the Burgess bird book. She places
manicotti on my tv tray, heads for the kitchen to add
a spot of ice to her glass. Red sauce and ricotta burn
my tongue. I sip my ginger ale, study the tray’s scene:
hounds dragging a pheasant into the marsh grass.

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