Time in the Sun

Day pulses within budding blue eyes.
She lays solo in the rickety bed -
a hand-me-down from a cousin removed.
Dust bunnies swirl and dance overhead
in the early morning sun, beckoning her awake.
A chill in the air sends goosebumps
past her threadbare nightgown
worn years past it's expiry date.
Peeling off her sprawling quilt,
she joins the already burdened dawn.

With noiseless footfalls, she creeps
to the crippled chair in the corner
where her favorite grass-colored smock
hangs - a token of love stitched
by cramped aged fingers, now silent.
Creaks echo, sounding as bullets, awakening
the aching chamber housing two generations.

The task to break their fast falls to her:
the sizzle of scent surrounds the kitchen berth;
A familiar routine partaken in duet.
Gratitude is given, utterances exchanged,
then abandoned to her role of domesticity.
Lather and rinse, plates come clean
- a grind that is chanted again and again.

Deepening her breath, a sigh is summoned out.
Slipping away is a fixture encored:
a record scratching in her head.
Bypassing the large crack in the porch,
she tumbles down the steps of grandfather's house.
Each clip and clop wrench draining blows
to the descending wooden flight.
She walks down the pebbled driveway,
scratching raw the bottoms of her unshod feet.

A solitary spot calls from an aged oak tree
- branches droopy and weighed down
with a verdant embrace of an ivy blanket.
Ideas and dreams flare here, spent and shaped
- a sagging memento of her station.
Hours drift by, the warm summer day
aids like a balm to a frayed heart.
Swinging from her childhood tire swing,
careworn from similar seasonal passing,
she waits for her time in the sun.