you would bring the camera with you
one time in that grocery bag
and the apple juice spilled
all over the lens
the pictures from disneyworld
all came out with an orange tinge that year.
but you always brought it,
filling pages upon pages of albums
documenting those more innocent days,

those albums wound up somewhere
though none of us can quite remember
but even if we cannot find them
up in some dusty box in the attic
or at my grandparents house,
i will probably always remember
my favorite one
making pizzas with you and dad
and me in the middle giggling as i stirred up a cloud of flour

http://poetryassignment.com/2008/12/assignment-flour/

Charity was the first thing
To fail in these hard times.

Dusty streets lined
With empty stores
With boarded windows
And signs that read
“Closed.”

The small cafe stands
At the end of a line
Of shuttered shops.
The light from within
spills onto the street
Shadows dance and play
In the dirt, movement
Inside pantomimed in the
Dust of the deserted lane.
The wooden planks of the
Walk in front are splintered
And broken, jagged pieces
Aim skyward ready to impail
The unwary or the unwelcome.

Discordant laughter echos
In the dark, silent street
Men in denim overalls,
Dirty from a backbreaking
Work in the empty fields sit
At tables together with
Chipped blue plates.

Every year gets harder
And harder to scratch
A living from this earth,
Prices fall, costs rise
A man can’t survive this
For much longer. They
Avoid each others eyes
Wondering who will be
Next to fail, to lose
Everything. Forced west
As landless migrant labor.
Just another Oakie.

Women in flower print
Dresses sit apart from
Husbands. Farm wives
Are stoic and inured to
Suffering.

They’ve known hard times.
They’ve known despair.
They’ve known fear.

The crowded room
Make a raucous noise
At this dark end
Of an empty street.

The stranger stands bathed
In the light before the
Cafe, hessitant, reluctant
To join the crowd. His
His clothes bear the smell
Of coal smoke and hard living.
He doesn’t look like a farmer,
Though he was one, once, long
Ago, back East in Virginia.

“Fresh pies!” calls a
Voice from behind blue
Doors.

The owner spins out
Of the kitchen, her
Red apron dusted with
Flour and clotted
Dough, a pie in each
Hand.

Faces turn towards her
“Who wants some?
I’ve got rhubarb and
Cherry. Anyone?”

The pies land on the counter
Awaiting dissection when a
Glimmer at the window catches her eye.

The stranger stands silloutted
In darkness, his shape
Illuminated like ghost of
Somewhere else,
Somewhere different,
Somewhere not here.

Their eyes meet and in that
Brief instant, she knows what
She has lost, what she can
Never recover.  Right then she
Feels the absence of faith.

The noise in the cafe
Stops, all eyes turn to
The window, hostile glances
In this desperate time.
“Get outta here, ya tramp!”
A huge man near the window
Hollars.  She does nothing
To stop him as he gestures
Violently toward the stranger.

Seeing the antagonism of the
Crowded room, the stranger’s
Face melts back into the darkness
Of the dusty, empty street.

She hesitates, indecisive
But she knows that she can
Do nothing for the stranger
For there are thousands of men
Just like him, travellers on
The line all in search of
The Big Rock Candy Mountain.
But Kansas is too flat and
Her cafe too small to help
Them all so why help one?

Cherry or Rhubarb.
Decision time.

Read other flour poems here.

My mom was baking
Flour handprints on her red slacks
Cartoons on TV

Then, the news broke in.
I thought my mom was crying
Because her pies burned.

Assignment: flour

http://poetryassignment.com/2008/12/assignment-flour/

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See other flour poems here.