There she stands, Grandma Clara, with her brood.
She does not face the camera
but turns her gaze toward the hills.
Perhaps she just heard the voices
of the children for whom she wears black.
Lillian for whom antibiotics were invented too late.
Leroy whose vacant wheelchair still lingers behind the shed.
Perhaps she just heard the distant thunder of war
where her two sons are fighting.
She is surrounded by her daughters and their new brood:
Bernice with her Paul.
Harriet with her Lloyd.
Beulah with Donald and tow-headed Quentin,
baby Louise swaddled in her arms.
It must be June.
There, new to the circle, stands Betty,
Clara’s daughter-in-law of six months.
I am there too but invisible,
my tiny heart beating under hers.

Barbara Collignon is a Milwaukee native, former French teacher, interpreter and translator. She enjoys poetry from many sources and languages, especially American poetry and that of poets from the Midwest. Collignon has published in the WFOP Calendar and in The Widow’s Handbook: Poetic Reflections on Grief and Survival.