WHEN SHE THINKS BACK

When she thinks back,
she pictures herself sitting
out on the patio stones,
rocking in a wicker chair
The chair bleached as white
as the stones
The stones, the colour of the
sheep on the hill

The memories blur together;
one falls against the next, and the
next, and the next,
much like a long line of dominos
set to cascade in some crazy method

Her rough red hands, delicate then,
did fancy needlework
She can still see the thread - colours
plucked right out of the fields:
corn-yellow, olive-green, tomato-red

While she sat on the patio stones
rocking and humming, snatches
of hymns, and laughing at nothing
Sometimes she mended things, but
she can't think what now

What would a country girl have
to mend, she wonders
She can almost put her mind on it
but it flits away, skittish as a colt
Was she always such a fool,
she ponders this a bit before moving
on to some other something.