"Morning Ponderings"

      Mint tea, warm, too hot made from water boiled on the stove. I pour it into Grandma’s cup, add cream and sugar and step outside to sit by the little green aluminum table. The one that didn’t blow away in the storm.

      Dry, end-of-summer grass and the last blooms of wildflowers wave lethargically in the field. You can see the air when it gets this humid. Pairs of little no-see-ums take their last dance, forming swirling clouds that rise and fall across the lawn. Towels and toys, left out overnight, are covered with dew. I should pick them up but don’t. They will all smell like mildew tonight. The smell of home.

      I think of my grandparents. Grandpa smelled like smoke until he quit and then he smelled like peppermints. He kept Lifesavers rolls in his pockets and would share if you said, “Please.” Grandma smelled of baby powder. She showed me how to pat some on myself every morning, and again in the evening if it had been a long hot day. She smelled of dry cleaning, too, a scent I couldn’t identify until much later.
      I rock back and forth in my chair. It is one of the old metal ones in my parents’ wedding pictures. My brother broke the other. He didn’t mean to. It just gave way under his adult weight and slowly lowered him backwards until his head and shoulders touched the ground. That was funny, and sad. We all liked that chair.

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First publication credit The Avalon Literary Review. Reprint credit Moss Piglet Art and Literary Journal

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