Punch

In a circle of folding

chairs, the church women settled,

having come from town

for my mama’s punch.

Among them, I

waited too, feet dangling,

thirsty, having long before

been kicked out of the kitchen,

where she still stirred and poured

to please these women

who suspected both

her beauty and her birthplace.

Don’t ever tell, she told me,

as I watched her

scrub the bucket, the only thing

she had to hold so much.

I could not resist: “Miss Nola,”

I whispered, “Mama

mixed the punch in a bucket.”

The room turned

on her, framed in the kitchen doorway,

offering a crystal bowl

full of sweet, green drink,

her eyes on mine.

Calyx: A Journal of Art and Literature by Women, Volume 29, Number 2, 2016, page 91