My feet are cold.
The black stove in the bottom right
corner of the room must've gone out.
Grandaddy's thick green army blanket
tops just above my feet.
I can feel my sister's breath,
warm on my neck, as we lie on Grandma's black leather sleeper sofa
across from the black stove.
My cousins are on the other side,
Ashton's asthma is acting up.
Mamma and daddy are in the other
room. The dog, Lady, is snoring on Grandma's pink armchair.
Grandma's in the kitchen banging
pots, preparing Sunday breakfast.
Auntie's walking down the hallway.
I can hear her blue cotton slippers
shuffle 'cross the carpet.
Mamma starts the tub in the
small, green bathroom down the
hall from the ancient white
washer and dryer.
My crisply pressed black suit
Is laid out on Grandma's
master bed.

My suit is on and my Bible
in hand. Seated on my
father's shoulders we all filed out
the door, twenty people staying
in Grandma's tiny, old house
beside the pasture that kept the
two brown quarters that were as
old as the house itself. The rose
bush across from the screen
door at the front of the house
had flowers, the same color
as those on my sister's Sunday dress
deep blood red. A blood red rose
on every breast short, tall, young
an old. A tradition carried out
until the rose bush across from the
screen door, at the front of the
house, beside the pasture that
kept the two brown quarters as
old as the house itself, died.