family memory poem # 11
my niece jackie jo maybe seven
riding with parents sister headed
toward a northern wisconsin lake
jackie held her red swim suit
out the window it flapped in the
breeze “if you drop that” warned
her dad “we wont stop to pick it up”
the inevitable occurred she dropped
it despite screams sobs her father
did not stop jackie spent the week
swimming in her underwear but
homeward as they drove through
a village her father said “isn’t this
about where jackie dropped her
suit?” they peered out the window
there it lay scrunched against the
dusty curb urban flotsam her father
braked while daughter snatched the
intact item the back seat was now
a hysteria of incredulous roiling joy
2019 Jacqueline Jackson
This article appears in Jun 27 – Jul 3, 2019.
