What were our hands doing?
All the days
we sat in a row
four sisters stacked like cups
on the long cement step, waiting for dinner.
All Julys,
late afternoon sun fell
past sunburned feet
hair that hung
for breeze to breathe through
yellow and brown ropes.
Mom’s hands pulled loose hamburger through spaghetti sauce eternally
in the fat yellow bowl.
We waited to scoop up the meat with little
corn-chip shovels.
Thin towels
between our legs,
to soak up lake
as if we had always been.
Some nights, Grandma’s hands were in the hollyhock.
Busy, to present us with little pink girls
bud for head
bloom for skirt
spine of slim toothpick.
We were to scoot them across the dinner table,
pass from pale palms,
trading new colors of skirts.
Author Bio:
Millie Tullis is a student of English and Philosophy at Utah State University. In 2016 she won the Elizabeth R. Curry Poetry Prize.
All the days
we sat in a row
four sisters stacked like cups
on the long cement step, waiting for dinner.
All Julys,
late afternoon sun fell
past sunburned feet
hair that hung
for breeze to breathe through
yellow and brown ropes.
Mom’s hands pulled loose hamburger through spaghetti sauce eternally
in the fat yellow bowl.
We waited to scoop up the meat with little
corn-chip shovels.
Thin towels
between our legs,
to soak up lake
as if we had always been.
Some nights, Grandma’s hands were in the hollyhock.
Busy, to present us with little pink girls
bud for head
bloom for skirt
spine of slim toothpick.
We were to scoot them across the dinner table,
pass from pale palms,
trading new colors of skirts.
Author Bio:
Millie Tullis is a student of English and Philosophy at Utah State University. In 2016 she won the Elizabeth R. Curry Poetry Prize.
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