Extraordinary Sunshine Weaver

This memoir poem is from my book Three-Penny Memories: A Poetic Memoir. The book is primarily about me and Mom. As the eldest daughter, I was Mom’s primary helper. One year, 1962 – 1963, Dad had to leave us for a year to complete his Master’s in Theology at Princeton. With seven kids to care for in Dad’s absence, Mom was so supportive to him.

Our House of Hungers
I.
Dad, his own best friend. 
Adventures on the sandy beach 
of Lake Michigan, his playground 

for swimming and skating.
Nature musters legends.
The winter snow eats him, 

buries him up to the neck.
Another boy, wearing Dad’s skates, 
falls through the lake ice. 

II.
Our arrivals to his family lake house 
to surprise our grandparents.
Our faces burn 

in Grandpa’s whisker kisses. Grandma Hattie, 
always in a cotton flowered apron.
Always in the kitchen.

Our tummies, filled with her cherry pie. 
The gaiety at the round kid table 
by the wood-burning stove. The hours of play 

on the beach. Our fun blazes into blisters. 
Bandages, our body armor.
Grandma’s hugs burst our suns.

III.
Years pass away. Our grandparents 
smile in frames. Our move back 
to Dad’s family home as he departs 

for a year at Princeton
for a Master’s in Theology.
Alone with seven kids, 

Mom resolves to survive
this sacrifice. The house eats 
her burdens. Our messy litter 

of candy wrappings, toys, 
mountains of laundry. Her heirloom jewelry 
feeds the vents. 

A bag of flour spreads a fine rug
for visitors due any minute.
The lid on an open tuna fish can 

almost severs my little brother’s toes
as he vaults from the dining room table
on a dare. Blood. Mayhem. The ER.

Once the house almost dies
in a violent lightning storm.
While Mom is across the street,

a fiery bolt sears the side of the house 
next to my big brother’s head.
Hit by the flu, all of us pale, 

wretch. Even the house 
spews laundry down the stairs.	
Stinks of sour milk. Unwashed diapers. 

IV.
In winter the hungry house
waits for coal delivery. 
When fed, the house shakes

like a beast, choking out smoke
and dust. In front of the open mouth
of the furnace, 

a woman stabs the coals.
Her eyes blaze
as though scathed to the fire.

“Mom?” I whisper. 
Her head snaps around. 
“What!!”

I flee to my bedroom,
where the window opens 
a portal onto the frozen lake. 

Moonlight splinters 
into twisted shadows on the shore. 
My screams scrape a dance on the ice.

As the night air echoes
the howls of wolves, 
the ice gives way.

V.
The musty smell 
of Granddad’s rusty tools
in the garage.

The kitchen steams memories 
of Grandma Hattie’s fresh-baked bread 
and hot cocoa.

I search for Mother’s lost pearls.
Scrub the floors of coal dust.
Collect driftwood for the mantel.

Mom emerges from the house.
“This way”, she says. “We can’t 
linger here.” 

I fear the water. 
Dare not venture too far. 
She beckons,

“Follow. Follow.” 
We sink to the deep lake bottom 
of drowned brush.

Twist with the current.
Eat the sweet and sour remains 
of recollections. 

KINDLE

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