Nelly staggered off the bus

laden with two brown paper shopping bags,

a coat sliding off her shoulders,

and a huge black leather purse

so full its metal clasp popped.

Gray wisps flying around her ears

she took a deep breath, settled bones in her body,

then bent like a beast of burden

to her task. Purse dangling from her left arm,

she picked up the lighter bag then gripped

the other, started her slow trudge up the street.

By the time she arrived at our front door

her heels dragged, shoulders drooped,

but the smile stretched across her face

lit the sparkle in faded blue eyes.

We girls burst from the house,

ready to help, ready for two weeks of fun.

Mother groaned, correctly foreseeing chaos.

Dad gritted his teeth around the applesauce cake

Nelly insisted her oldest son loved. (She brought two.)

She unloaded all her worldly goods

from the paper sacks, upended her purse,

showed us girls her newest treasures, settled in.

Biography

Patricia Wellingham-Jones, a former psychology researcher and writer/editor, is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee. She has work published in numerous anthologies, journals, and internet magazines including The Tule Review Acorn, Poetry Depth Quarterly, Phoebe, Visions International, Manzanita Quarterly, Midwest Poetry Review, Midnight Mind, Nanny Fanny, mélange journal and Thunder Sandwich. She edited River Voices: Poets of Butte, Shasta, Tehama and Trinity Counties, California and Labyrinth: Poems & Prose. She is author of Don't Turn Away: Poems About Breast Cancer, Apple Blossoms at Eye Level, and Welcome, Babies. A Gathering Glance, one of the Lummox Press Little Red Book series, is due out in June, 2003.

Photographer's Biography

Jenny Kay, an administrative assistant in northern California, taught English at International School Bangkok and wrote features for Bangkok Post for 15 years. She later taught computer programs in CA. Photography is a new adventure - she recently sold a picture of her cat Johnnie to I Love Cats magazine.