My grandparents' generation

My Grandparents’ Generation

They are taking so many things with them:

their sewing machines and fine china,

their ability to fold a newspaper

with one hand and swat a fly.

They are taking their rotary telephones,

and fat televisions, and knitting needles,

their cast iron frying pans, and Tupperware.

They are packing away the picnics

and perambulators, the wagons

and church socials. They are wrapped in

lipstick and big band music, dressed

in recipes. Buried with them: bathtubs

with feet, front porches, dogs without leashes.

These are the people who raised me

and now I am left behind in

a world without paper letters,

a place where the phone

has grown as eager as a weed.

I am going to miss their attics,

their ordinary coffee, their chicken

fried in lard. I would give anything

to be ten again, up late with them

in that cottage by the river, buying

Marvin Gardens and passing go,

collecting two hundred dollars.