You, talking to my mother
and sisters in the house.
Outside, my father and I
thrashing beans,
talking about you, our plans
now that we have decided to
live together.

He is getting old, my father,
but overnight the lines
have disappeared from his face.

There is laughter in the house.
Father and I pause to listen:
his face breaking into that complex
but restful smile
that knows the whims of the weather
and the certainty of death.
Women will always gossip,
but there is laughter and light
in his hoe-and-stone-stunted fingers
as he continues
to paint
our future portraits
into the family canvas.

The winter sun burns like summer.
The late green leaves, the quiet
electricity in the air;
you could mistake it for summer.
Everything points towards growth:
'Don't you ever trust them!' -
giving me the wink that must have fooled
her
who now dates my age from the year
he lost his first tooth.
'Only two left now,' he says,
cracking a chicken bone like a straw.

Afterwards,
you and I, holding hands.
Lightly wondering where we have been
all this time.
Glad to have been there
not caring for what we have seen
just holding hands lightly
and laughing wonderingly:
'So this is where it all happened,
thirty years ago!' Yes, the world
is here, in our fingers,
waiting for us,
like a strange friendly ship:
summer needs no map
into itself.