Monday, June 6, 2011

This Woman

Today, Monday, June 6th, would have been my Nanny's 81st birthday.


Peggy Muriel Johnson Brookreson-Brolls
June 6, 1930 - September 30, 2009

This woman is like a sleek, red-on-red '69 Corvair
languishing under arthritic mesquites over in Lawn,
scrapyard, Texas … and she sleeps peacefully,
rusting, beneath a roasting sun's dread … praying
her purr is not too long dead. And this woman

is like a platter of rib-eye steak with puddled juice
seeping into creamed potatoes … indeed, the
sourdough sops her up. Bath for the palate?
A slippery, wide-mouthed quart of iced tea with
lemon. Un-sweet, please. This woman is even like

Pee-Wee's ... the old rock gas station right before
the big oak-lined curve in the Gap ... that remembers
fifteen cent Dr. Peppers from the ice box, days of real
full service, and the billowing smokehouse out back
with its tree's swing still swaying as when baby Harry
hung himself from it. Yes, this woman is ever

so much like silver-streaked, seventy-nine years of
pure West Texas ... forty of which passed strolling
the God-forsaken wilderness in gallant blunder;
and she always took life for granted so long as her
four children were fed.

Shot in the head ... right there in the blue-n-white
striped VFW building that's next door to what's now
the all-nude Cloud Nine ... and somehow lived to
not want to tell a soul about it. This woman.

                                                                                        © brooke

3 comments:

  1. You look alot like her.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Theres my MOMMA! Please give her a kiss for me God! I sure miss her more each day!!!Love you Mom!

    Aunt Cindi

    ReplyDelete
  3. Deborah via FacebookJune 6, 2011 at 1:29 PM

    Mama Crow, I can see so much resemblance in you and her. She was a beautiful woman as you are.

    ReplyDelete

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